WEEE Directive
 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. The Greenstar packaging Compliance scheme Recycle 1st has already set up a WEEE compliance scheme which will discharge its’ members obligations once the regulation is fully implemented.
The Regulations divide WEEE into 10 categories:
- Large household appliances
- Small household appliances
- IT & telecommunications equipment
- Consumer equipment
- Lighting equipment
- Electrical and electronic tools
- Toys, leisure and sports equipment
- Medical devices
- Monitoring & control equipment
- Automatic dispensers
If your business sells any of the above items you have a responsibility to ensure that sufficient funding is in place when the item becomes redundant for it to be disposed of safely. In practice this will mean that a retailer will need to offer a take-back scheme or alternatively nominate a third party to carry out this role, provided that the final holder of the WEEE is not charged.
Should you need to dispose of WEEE, Greenstar has a nationwide bespoke service designed to facilitate hassle free adherence to the regulations whilst driving down the cost. Currently there are still many aspects regarding implementation of the Directive which are yet to be decided. On the 14 December 2005 the Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks announced a review into the proposals for implementing the WEEE Directive in the UK. The review will be undertaken by a cross Departmental team and will be followed by a full consultation exercise.
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