The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Regulations aim to tackle the environmental impacts of electrical and electronic equipment when it reaches the end of its life. It applies the ‘producer responsibility’ principle to producers to finance the costs of the environmental treatment of waste electrical items.

The regulations place various obligations on producers, distributors and business end-users of electrical and electronic equipment.

Producers

The WEEE Regulations are intended to transfer the responsibility (and the cost) of dealing with electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) at the end of its life, from the user to the producer.

You are a producer if you:

Manufacture and sell electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) under your own brand

Rebrand EEE products from another supplier with your own brand

Import EEE into the UK on a professional basis

The regulations apply to all producers regardless of their turnover, market share or number of employees.

Producers must:

Join an approved producer compliance scheme - this is an annual requirement

Finance the collection, treatment, recovery and environmentally sound disposal of your market share of household waste electrical and electronic equipment

Mark all new electrical and electronic products (or, because of the size or function of the product, the packaging, instructions, or guarantee) placed on the market after 1 April 2007 with the crossed-out wheeled bin symbol, a producer identification mark and a date mark (this is the black line under the wheelie bin)

Offer information to WEEE treatment and reprocessing facilities about products put on the UK market to help with effective treatment, reuse and recycling

Provide your producer registration number to distributors to whom you supply equipment

Keep records for four years

Distributors (Retailers and Wholesalers)

You are defined as a distributor if you sell EEE to business (B2B) and/or household (B2C) end-users. This includes selling products via the internet or other distance selling methods. If you also manufacture, rebrand or import EEE then you are also a producer.

You must provide your customers with information in writing on:

The environmental impacts of the substances in EEE and waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE)

The reasons for separating WEEE from other waste

The meaning of the crossed out wheelie bin symbol

How they can safely dispose of WEEE for proper treatment and recycling free of charge.

You must keep evidence for four years that you have provided this information. You do not need to keep records of individual cases.

You should ask your suppliers for their unique Producer Identification Number as this shows that the producer has joined an approved compliance scheme and is helping fund the treatment and recycling of separately collected household WEEE.

Household (B2C) customers

You must set up a system that your household customers can use to dispose of WEEE free of charge.

There are two types of take-back system:

Distributor take-back scheme (DTS)

In-store take-back scheme.

The DTS is funded by member distributors paying a fee to support and improve a national network of Designated Collection Facilities (DCFs). Most of these are local authority civic amenity sites.

In store take back requires distributors to accept back household WEEE that is equivalent to (but not necessarily exactly the same as) the new equipment purchased by the customer.

The distributor must keep records to record the number and category of items received back as WEEE. The Vehicle Certification Authority is responsible for ensuring compliance in stores that are not members of the DTS.

Business End Users

Equipment sold before the 13^th August 2005

This is called historic WEEE and can be identified by the lack of the black line under the wheelie bin symbol, or no wheelie bin symbol at all. If businesses are replacing such WEEE with new equipment of a similar function then they can return the historic WEEE free of charge to the manufacturer of the new equipment. This is not the case if they buy the new equipment from a distributor or retailer.

Equipment sold after the 13^th August 2005

Businesses can return new WEEE (marked with the black line under the wheelie bin) to the producer of the equipment or through their Producer Compliance Scheme.

Any business disposing of waste must do so through a registered waste carrier (new rules in 2011 may require businesses to register even if they are carrying their own waste) and be accompanied by a waste transfer note or hazardous waste consignment note and that it is taken to a suitably licensed facility. For WEEE, this will generally be an Approved Authorised Treatment Facility (AATF) or approved exporter.