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Manufacturers and importers of electrical goods sold
on the UK market now have a legal duty to fund the
collection and recycling of waste electrical and
electronic equipment (WEEE).
This recycling duty comes under the WEEE
Regulations, which came into force in July 2007,
bringing the UK into line with Europe's WEEE Directive
of 2003.
The legislation
establishes a system of producer responsibility in which
manufacturers and importers of electronic goods
(producers) take financial responsibility for the UK
achieving collection and recycling targets for all WEEE
collected separate from the general waste stream.
They do this by joining a
producer compliance scheme, which then arranges for
enough WEEE to be collected to meet each producer's
recycling requirements under the regulations. The
exact amount each producer must have recycled
relates to the tonnage of new products they put on
the market each year. The costs of complying are
then met by producers through membership fees.
There are more than 30 producer
compliance schemes currently operating in the UK, some
of whom specialise in dealing with companies selling to
the business market, rather than to households, with
some specialising in certain sectors like the lighting
industry.
Retailers also have some obligations
under the WEEE Regulations, to contribute towards the
collection facilities for unwanted appliances. They must
either join the national Distributors' Deposit Scheme,
which then funds the upgrade of official collection
sites for WEEE, or offer their own in-store takeback
service for customers to return old goods for recycling
when buying similar new products.
Collection
The WEEE legislation requires
all unwanted appliances arising in the business
sector to be collected for recycling and safe
disposal.
For household appliances, the
regulations set a collection target of 4kg per
head of the population per year.
To meet their targets, producer compliance schemes
arrange for enough WEEE to be collected from official
collection sites - and sent to accredited recyclers - to
meet their members' requirements.
These official collection sites are known as designated
collection facilities (DCFs), and mostly take the form
of local authority civic amenity sites or waste transfer
stations, but can be either privately-run or
community-run enterprises.
There are 10 categories of
electrical equipment that must be collected and
recycled under Europe's WEEE Directive. At DCF
sites this categorisation is simplified, with
householders separating their unwanted
appliances into up to five different collection
containers – large household appliances (apart
from fridges); fridges; televisions and
monitors; gas discharge lamps; and, all other
WEEE. Both DCFs and the
recyclers of WEEE issue evidence documentation to prove
that collected material has been recycled according to
the WEEE Regulations. If a producer
compliance scheme has not collected enough WEEE from DCF
sites to meet the exact needs of its members, it can
trade WEEE recycling evidence with other schemes that
may have collected too much WEEE for their members.
During 2008, Europe is carrying out a review of the WEEE
Directive, which could see new recycling targets or
environmental objectives set.
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To follow the UK's efforts to meet its obligations under the WEEE Directive,
and the further development of the legislation, see
the letsrecycle.com
electronics recycling section.
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