Vacuum Cleaners and Brussels.

A few weeks ago I was debating with someone about the benefits and negatives of the UK's continued membership of the European Union when they suddenly claimed that the European Union was going to ban hoovers, a rather ludicrous claim that I immediately asked him to support with evidence. After being linked to a rather inefficient Daily Mail article that did not even bother to quote the directive in question I went off in search to find my own information and discovered that like other stories promoted by sceptics it was only partially true. The EU regulation in question shall eventually restrict  the power of vacuum cleaners to 900 watts (2017 implementation) as part of a general direction directive designed to cut energy requirements across the European Union by 2020 and does in no shape or form ban hoovers.

After some more searching I found another common misconception was people thinking this legislation would make hoovers more inefficient and lead to more energy being wasted as people would have to use the device for longer to get the same result. In reality the opposite is true with new ecodesign and labelling regulations ensuring that consumers will get a better vacuum cleaner. In the past no legislation existed that enforced standards on the performance and reliability of vacuum cleaners and companies could sell inefficient machines without risk of punishment and the creation of such regulation will ensure the development of new machines that will reduce household bills and benefit the environment.

Global warming is one of the largest challenges facing this planet and regulation like this is desperately needed as reducing energy consumption makes it easier for member states to replace polluting  non-renewable sources of energy with renewable power plants. Instead of being a weapon to strike the EU with the sceptics have accidentally stumbled upon a perfect reason of why the union should exist, as only through the international cooperation fostered by the EU can we create methods to tackle the thread of climate change.