WEEE: Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment

The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive came into force in January 2007 aiming to both reduce the amount of WEEE being produced and encourage everyone to reuse, recycle and recover it. The WEEE Directive also aims to improve the environmental performance of businesses that manufacture, supply, use, recycle and recover electrical and electronic equipment.

The WEEE regulations shift the responsibility for paying for the treatment, recycling and disposal of electrical waste from end-users to producers. “Producer” in this context means someone who manufactures, imports, re-brands electrical goods. Excitech is not a WEEE Producer because we do not manufacture, import or re-brand WEEE.

Responsibilities for disposing of business WEEE are as follows depends on the age of the equipment being disposed of and whether it is being replaced as follows:

• If you bought the equipment before 13 August 2005, and are replacing it with new equipment fulfilling the same function, then the producer of the new equipment is responsible for the collection, treatment and recycling of the old equipment, regardless of whether they were the original manufacturer.
• If you bought the equipment before 13 August 2005 and do not replace it, then you are responsible its treatment and recycling.
• If you bought the electrical equipment after 13 August 2005, then the producer of the equipment is responsible for its collection, treatment and recycling when you dispose of it, irrespective of whether you are replacing it.

Further details:

• If you lease or rent equipment, the producer is usually responsible for its disposal.
• The regulations allow producers and businesses to agree “alternative arrangements”, whereby the business user agrees to take on some or all of the future costs of end-of-life treatment of equipment they buy.
• WEEE from business users may be collected by the producer or a compliance scheme working on its behalf.
• WEEE may be collected directly from the business users’ premises or the business may be asked to take the WEEE to a local collection facility.