German refuse-processing company Remondis said Friday it had won a contract with Hitachi Europe to collect household electronic waste under new European Union recycling rules, dpa reported. From next March, its business unit Remondis Electrorecycling is to collect thousands of tons of used appliances annually on behalf of the Japanese-owned company. The contract runs till 2009. Remondis, based in the town of Luenen, is to extract useful raw materials from the worn-out devices. The Remondis group has a workforce of 15,000 and says it has annual sales of 2.2 billion euros. Electronics manufacturers must register with German authorities by this month to comply with the E.U. directive on waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE). Municipalities will provide public bins for old appliances. --More 2334 Local Time 2034 GMT
