The EU is set for a major overhaul of the bloc's e-waste regulations, after the European Parliament's environment committee yesterday voted overwhelmingly in favour of a new package of rules designed to increase e-waste recycling rates and crack down on electronics and waste management firms guilty of illegally exporting old equipment to developing countries.

The committee voted by 52-1, with five abstentions in favour of reforms to the current Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive that would set more demanding targets for e-waste collection and increase obligations on IT and electronic equipment retailers and manufacturers to ensure waste is collected and recycled properly.

Currently, the WEEE rules require electronics firms to fund e-waste recycling in line with a flat-rate annual target of 4kg per person.

However, green groups have complained that while the rules have led to an increase in e-waste recycling since they were introduced in 2007, they have failed to adequately curb the illegal export of waste to scrap yards in Africa and Asia.

As a result, the EU has proposed a switch to more demanding targets based on a percentage of the total e-waste produced each year.

The European Council of member states has said it wants to see a new 65 per cent collection target to be phased in to most EU countries by 2020, with the remainder signing up to the target by 2022.

But MEPs in the environment committee yesterday voted for a more demanding target of 85 per cent to be brought in from as early as 2016.

"Collecting and recycling e-waste is good for the environment and good for the economy," said rapporteur Karl-Heinz Florenz. "Parliament's ambitious but achievable targets will help recover valuable raw materials and cut the flow of e-waste to landfills, incinerators and developing countries."

Significantly, the new proposals would also include a separate target designed to encourage the reuse of at least five per cent of the old computers and mobile phones that are collected.

MEPs said targets would vary based on the technologies involved so that between 70 and 85 per cent of e-waste should be collected, with 50 to 75 per cent recycled and the remainder reused.

The proposed new package of measures would also increase obligations on all but the smallest of electrical goods shops to provide free e-waste collection facilities, step up pressure on electronics exporters to prove they are only shipping products that are reusable and are not sending waste to developing countries, and streamline some of the directive's compliance procedures.

The reforms will move towards a full European Parliament vote early next year, ahead of formal negotiations with the European Council designed to finalise the changes to the directive.