The problem of electrical waste is a rapidly growing one in Europe

Forget blonde hair, airbags and paternity leave. Sweden is now the land of the specialist recycling plant.

For three years, it has had laws to cut the electrical waste mountain, and MEPs want other EU states to catch up.

The WEEE directive on Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment sets recycling goals for all of them to reach.

An hour outside Stockholm is a company called Mirec, which takes old computers, televisions, vacuum cleaners, coffee makers - in fact anything with a cable - and recycles it - metal, plastic, glass and all.

"Unfortunately, when you are talking about environmental business you must have legislation as a base," said managing director Hoorkan Cheerde.

Every Swede gets through around 16kg of electrical goods every year. Impressively they also manage to recycle well over half that amount.

Goran Farm, a Social Democrat MEP, thinks it is more than simply a matter of saving the environment.

The legislators should have had a more holistic approach Henrik Sundstrom, Electrolux

With producers expected to pay for much of the cost of recycling electrical waste, this new European directive will also protect the single market, he says.

"For example, if a German producer had to live with very high legislative standards, while a British or French company did not, it would create unfair competition," Mr Farm said.

"So this is why we need a European legislation - to create fair competition on the market."

Impact on environment

It is for this reason Swedish companies have broadly welcomed the legislation.

Swedish firm Mirec separates out anything that can be used again

The problem is that some things, such as the polyurethane foam used for the most efficient fridges, cannot be recycled as anything.

And yet the European parliament says a full three-quarters of big appliances must be recycled.

"The legislators should have had a more holistic approach," said Henrik Sundstrom, of Electrolux in Stockholm.

"They should have really looked at where you have the largest environmental impact. The way we see it, and I think most people see it, it comes from the use phase and the amount of electricity and energy we are using."

In the UK, critics in industry and local government are also wondering how the British government will organise the chain of recovery and recycling, who will pay, and who will monitor the recycling to ensure targets are hit.

More broadly, there are questions to be asked about where the single market stops, and how far new laws need to be passed in order to make the single market function efficiently.

Two things, though, are clear.

Firstly, the European Parliament is dominated by people who believe in the worth of the European project. Secondly that the power of the parliament is only increasing.