Recycle 1st WEEE Compliance Scheme Approval

Recycle 1st, Greenstar’s official compliance scheme is pleased to announce that it has been approved as a WEEE Compliance Scheme. The scheme will be able to offer a full range of services for both B2C and B2B customers.
The new regulations require manufacturers, sellers and importers of electrical equipment to register with an approved compliance scheme by 15th March 2007.
Greenstar’s Environmental Director, Mike Scollick, explains “Organisations who will be affected by the WEEE directive should contact Greenstar”. 

Explaining the role Recycle 1st will play, Scollick continues “Businesses  not only need to ensure that they stay legally compliant but also need to understand the impact the regulations will have on them as a business.  Our dedicated team of Environmental Advisors will ensure that our members receive a tailored solution that best suits their business and maximises their own infrastructure and resource. 

Furthermore, our team of advisors will be on hand to answer questions and provide detailed forecasts to assist businesses in their budgeting process."

Continuing on, Scollick elaborates: "We will use our extensive experience of carrying out collections of WEEE, marrying such services with the wider provision of recycling and waste management services offered by the company.  We will work to ensure our customers receive a cost effective WEEE compliance service whilst ensuring full legal compliance with the WEEE regulations and other waste law. Greenstar is the market-leading recycling-led waste management company with extensive collection operations throughout the UK for all types of WEEE.

Thanks to its experience in the Republic of Ireland – where the WEEE Directive has already been implemented – and its successful operation of a packaging  compliance scheme, Buckinghamshire based Greenstar is able to offer UK companies the services of its Recycle 1st compliance scheme – a one-stop shop for the new legislation and general recycling issues.

Recycle 1st is one of the largest compliance schemes under the Packaging Regulations, consequently Greenstar is well versed in the style of operation required. The company has been collecting WEEE for the last four years and, over time, has developed box and cage systems where it can pick up various amounts of WEEE from any location (one of the first such systems in the UK). Greenstar has also used its experience from the Republic of Ireland – where it is the country's largest waste management operator – and will use this successful model for its activities in the UK.

About the WEEE regulations
The regulations aim to prevent or reduce WEEE from arising by setting targets for the collection, reuse and treatment of WEEE. In a similar way to the Packaging Regulations, the WEEE Regulations will require those responsible for placing electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) on to the market to meet their obligations based on the weight of EEE they have supplied in the previous year.

Producers will need to ensure that all the products they sell are marked with a “crossed out wheelie bin” symbol, producer name and creation date.  They will also be required to provide details regarding the safe disassembly and material types of their products to aid recycling.  Producers will be required to join a Producer Compliance Scheme and pay a charge dependent on the weight of EEE sold by the producer in the previous year.  Alternatively the producer can arrange for and fund environmentally sound disposal of WEEE equivalent to the weight sold in the previous year and provide this data to the Producer Compliance Scheme.

Distributors have a vital role in educating customers about the need to recycle WEEE as well as dealing with customers’ WEEE on a like for like basis when new EEE is purchased.  Distributors can opt to accept WEEE in store or alternatively advise their customers of a nearby Designated Collection Facility where the customer can dispose of the item free of charge.  If a distributor does not wish to collect WEEE from customers in store, it will need to pay the Distributor Take Back Scheme to do this instead.  The Distributor Take Back Scheme will accumulate funds from distributors and place this in a central pot which will then be allocated to Designated Collection Facilities (likely to be civic amenity sites) so that they can upgrade their sites to accommodate the different categories of WEEE.