Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-01-18-Speech-3-329-000"
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"en.20120118.25.3-329-000"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, William Painter was the inventor of the crown cap and, at the end of the nineteenth century, he told his friend and colleague, King Camp Gillette – I assume he is the one who manufactured those razor blades – something to this effect: ‘If you really want to get rich, then you have to make products that people throw away’. I believe that the two gentlemen failed to realise at that moment that this was the beginning of what we now know as the throwaway society, for a long time a symbol of our progress, but today, in reality, a huge, huge problem.
When the directive came out for the first time in 2003, we turned our attention – rightly, because these things are still very important – to the problems that that throwaway society poses to our environment, air quality and soil quality and the social consequences of the poor dismantling and recycling of such electronic waste in developing countries. Allow me to reiterate that these remain very important arguments. However, as the Commissioner said, there is, of course, one further, additional issue, in particular the issue of the noble metals, those important raw materials used in our mobile phones and other electronic products.
As a result, during this recast, we have received enormous support from a particular segment of the industry. Support, ladies and gentlemen – and the rapporteur has already referred to this – that we have also received from the Commission, but unfortunately not from the Council, which, for one reason or another, is still in the frame of mind where it thinks that rules are not a good thing. Well, in this case, the rules are not only good, but they are also very much necessary, if we are to achieve our targets. Ambitious recycling targets, extremely robust rules for export and making sure that small products, in particular – for instance, our mobile phones, where we keep a lot of important information – comply with the more ambitious targets.
Finally, I would like to sincerely thank the rapporteur – and I do so with a great deal of conviction – because it is under her able leadership and thanks to her experience that we have nevertheless been able to push through Parliament’s strong position as far as possible. However, as I said just now, the Council actually seems to be on totally the wrong wavelength. That is also the reason why I, together with my group, will definitely and with great conviction vote for this result tomorrow."@en1
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