The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment(WEEE) Regulations
The European Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive became UK Law as the WEEE Regulations on 2 Jan 2007 and is regarded as one of the most important pieces of environmental legislation to have been introduced into the UK.
The key aim of the Regulations is to deliver a sustainable method of dealing with the large volumes of electrical and electronic equipment produced in the UK and Europe when it reaches “end of life”. This is to be achieved by significantly increasing the volume of material recycled and greatly reducing the amount sent to landfill.
The responsibility for covering the costs of this recycling will be borne by the producers or importers of the equipment for items brought to the market after a certain date. For all other items purchased prior to this date costs will be borne by the organisation disposing of it. A rough guideline is that any equipment purchased prior to Aug 2005 will be the responsibility of the end user.
We currently throw away in the UK a million tonnes of EEE waste every year and it is growing by 80,000 tonnes annually. Of this only 12% is IT equipment. We can’t continue to dispose of it through landfill or by exporting to Third World countries and must find an alternative method to ensure it is properly recycled back into the manufacturing process. It is estimated that the UK economy will have to pay up to £450 million per annum to comply with the WEEE Regulations.
It is important that we are aware of the damage that exporting our waste electrical equipment is having on the Third World. The electronics and information industry is the world’s largest and fastest growing manufacturing industry; as a result e-waste is now the fastest growing waste stream in the industrialized world.
Due to the lack of financing available to the Third World much of the growth in IT has been by the importation of hand me downs. On a monthly basis a container ship with 500 containers from Europe and the USA arrives in Lagos, Nigeria.The Regulations will impact on all businesses and organisations, requiring them to have in place a policy to deal with the proper environmental disposal of electrical equipment when it reaches its “end of life”. The range of equipment covered is extensive and will basically mean that any piece of equipment in an establishment that requires an electrical current to operate it will be subject to the Regulations. By law, we will all be responsible for the proper disposal of WEEE; however, any organization producing more than 200kg of hazardous WEEE per annum should already be compliant with the Hazardous Waste Regulations that came into force in July 05. All private businesses, public organisations and sport and social clubs use a large amount of electrical equipment and are becoming more and more concerned with the proper environmental disposal of this. Under the Hazardous Waste Regulations, if correct disposal is not undertaken, there are serious consequences and although these may include fines and bans on products, the most serious implication will be customer or public dissatisfaction. Proper recycling of WEEE, as with other waste, is not just about Regulations but what our social and corporate responsibilities are.
