Regulations covering waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) came into force last July (2007) and drives UK appliance manufacturers into line with the European WEEE Directive of 2003.

Manufacturers and importers now have a legal duty to fund the collection and recycling of such waste, which should lead to the UK meeting its targets as set out in the Directive. These targets account for the separate collection of WEEE from general waste.
Retailers now have legal responsibilities regarding WEEE and must either provide customers with a ‘take back’ facility (encouraging them to return old goods for recycling when buying similar new ones) or join the National Distributors Deposit Scheme, which funds the creation and upgrade of WEEE collection sites. These sites are now known as Designated Collection Facilities (DCFs) and are usually located at local authority civic amenities.

The Directive also requires waste appliances from the business sector to be collected for recycling and safe disposal, and has set an annual collection target of 4kg WEEE per head, for the population as a whole.
Within the Directive, WEEE is separated into ten categories, though for simplicity this is broken down into the following five categories for householders:

• Large household appliances
• Fridges
• Televisions and monitors
• Gas discharge lamps
• All other WEEE

Recyclers of WEEE and the DCFs have to submit evidence documents to prove that materials have been collected from their site. If a site hasn’t collected enough WEEE, it can trade evidence from more successful scheme that may have collected too much WEEE and exceeded their targets.

2008 sees a review of the 2003 WEEE Directive, so we could soon see the implementation of new objectives, and the setting of new targets.
You can download a copy of the most current WEEE Directive from the Downloads section on this site.