Who pays for your WEEE?

The simple answer is you do!

The producer is normally responsible for collecting, retrieving, treating and disposing of the WEEE in an environmentally sound way.

In practical terms for small companies this usually means joining an approved producer compliance scheme. For a great many companies, such as OPENXTRA, the amount of waste is tiny and the costs disproportionate, but compliance is not an option.

The complications start with B2B sales, so called non-Household WEEE. The chances are that business users will need to be registered for WEEE (remember that long list of who has to register). In many cases it will be impractical to separate every item and send it back to all the producers. Imagine dismantling a computer room and having to send everything back to all the different manfacturers/producers/suppliers! So for Business customers either they will handle WEEE through their own disposal arrangements, or contactually with whoever is replacing the old equipment, or it will be part of the contract of sale for new equipment.

For Household WEEE, (and this applies to all retailers, in store or on-line), you need to provide customers with information regarding the environmental impact of what you sell, the reasons for WEEE, the meaning of the markings, and you must provide advice and information on how they can deposit WEEE for proper and safe treatment. Recycling and treatment services have to be provided FREE OF CHARGE to the end user.

Most retailers will have a supplier or importer who will have to accept ultimate responsibility for handling the WEEE.

When do you have to do all this?

Important dates are as follows:

The regulations came into force on 2 January 2007. So it’s the law.

Producers have to join a compliance scheme by 15 March 2007. There are lots of options to choose from, but you will need to get registered before then.

Producers have to mark electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) by 1 April 2007. Older products should already have the wheely bin symbol on.

Full responsibility for treating and recycling household WEEE begins on 1 July 2007.

Of course there is a lot more to it than can be described in a few blog articles, and it’s yet another expense for businesses to bear, but the aim is a good one, we just can’t go on dumping millions of tons of waste into landfill. The impact on the environment should be lessened and recycling/reuse of materials should be improved dramatically.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 11th, 2007 @ 11:46 am on the category General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.