The new regime makes individual producers responsible for financing the waste treatment of their own products. Rapporteur Karl-Heinz Florenz, who steered the legislation through Parliament, said the new laws "meet the needs of consumers, environmentalists and industry".
The Parliament inserted a "product design" article aimed at preventing producers from getting round recycling rules by designing products with "clever chips" to ensure that they cannot be recycled, something which printer manufacturers have been accused of when designing their ink cartridges.
The law comes into effect in 2006.