The WEEE Directive – a (very) short and simplified guide!

The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment - WEEE - Directive, originally tabled to come into UK law in July 2005, finally passed into statute in January 2007.  It governs the way that Electrical and Electronic Equipment - EEE – from households and businesses is disposed of at the end of its life.  The most significant aspects (for most people) of the Directive are Producer Responsibility and Retailer Takeback. 

Producer responsibility

The principle is simple – it costs money to dispose of EEE correctly.  Manufacturers of EEE should therefore be responsible for these costs.  To ensure producers pay only their fair share the amount each contributes is based on their market share, ie the percentage of new equipment that they have sold in a given year. 

Retailer Takeback

Also a straightforward principle – if you sell EEE, you have to accept unwanted goods back.  This helps to ensure that WEEE is separated from other waste and helps consumers avoid having to go to the trouble of taking their unwanted items to a Council Amenity Site (Tip).

So, in principle, as a private citizen, you go and buy a shiny new washing machine and ask the retailer to take your old one away – safe in the knowledge that it will be assessed for its reuse potential or taken apart so that the components can be recycled.  Unfortunately, somebody somewhere forgot about the consumer and focused on the money instead.  As a result, retailers are perfectly entitled to join a “Compliance Scheme” which enables them to tell customers to dispose of their old items themselves, safe in the knowledge that the compliance scheme will pay for the disposal. (See our Retailer Takeback Scheme Options)

For businesses the same general principles apply, but the cost of transporting the goods to a treatment facility will not be bourne by producers – i.e. businesses will have to pay.  If your business needs to dispose of WEEE The Network (Worcestershire) can help, see our “services for business” page here.

Under the Directive, all types of electrical and electronic equipment are classified into one of ten categories;

1. Large household appliances
2. Small household appliances
3. IT and telecommunications equipment
4. Consumer equipment
5. Lighting equipment
6. Electrical and electronic tools (with the exception of large-scale stationary industrial tools)
7. Toys, leisure and sports equipment
8. Medical devices (with the exception of all implanted and infected products)
9. Monitoring and control instruments
10. Automatic dispensers

Each category has targets for reuse and recycling, with new and particular emphasis being placed on disposal of all types of television, liquid crystal displays (even the small ones – mobile phones, for example) and fluorescent tubes and bulbs.

In total, including the “Best Available Treatment Recovery and Recycling Techniques” the regulations are some 186 pages of 10 point script. If it’s important to you, read the guides or get in touch with us here, do not rely on the limited information here.