Briefings

Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive

Background
The Waste of Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive came into force in February 2003 and tackles one of the fastest growing waste streams in Europe. Each person in the EU disposes around 14 kg of WEEE every year. Currently about 90% of the estimated 1 million tonnes per year produced in the UK is disposed of without any pre-treatment.

The Directive was due to be implemented in the UK by August 2004. However, implementation has been delayed and the DTI has recently released the final part of a three-stage consultation on the implementation of the Directive in the UK:
http://164.36.164.20/sustainability/weee/index.htm#Consultation_on_Government_implementation

Separate collection: retailers compliance scheme
The Directive requires Member States to establish systems whereby final holders can return WEEE free of charge to prevent it from being disposed with unsorted municipal waste. Member States must achieve a minimum rate of separate collection of 4 kilograms per inhabitant per year by 31 December 2006.

Retailers, when supplying a new product, will be obliged to offer to take back (free of charge) similar WEEE from private households. However, this can also be fulfilled by participating in a compliance scheme. The compliance scheme is expected to build on existing collection infrastructure such as local authority Civic Amenity (CA) sites and the Government has asked the retail sector to bring forward proposals for a scheme and indicated the expected level of funding to be made available to local authorities to upgrade CA sites (a minimum of £5 million per year for the next 5 years). Discussions between Government and the British Retail Consortium are ongoing.

Where CA site capacity is insufficient or non-existent, retailers would be expected to make other arrangements such as take back points at major retail parks, which would require relevant licence/permit exemptions and must be in accordance with local planning consents.

National Clearing House
Producers will be responsible for financing the collection of WEEE from CA sites and other designated collection facilities. Producers’ responsibility is likely to be discharged through a National Clearing House (NCH). Producers have submitted proposals for the NCH.

Operators of designated collection facilities would have access to the NCH’s collection service which would arrange for the collection of WEEE from CA sites and other designated central collection sites on demand, free of charge.

In order to secure collection through the NCH, operators of designated collection facilities would be expected to register with the NCH details of their operations, locations, access arrangements, and stipulate whether they offer facilities for all types of WEEE or just some of the WEEE collection groupings. The WEEE collection groupings have been proposed to simplify collection and treatment arrangements. The proposed groupings are:

• Category 1 and 10: large domestic appliances
• Category 3 and 4: IT/telecoms, consumer equipment
• Category 2,6,7 and 9: small household appliances, electrical and electronic tools, toys, leisure and sports equipment and monitoring and control equipment.
• Category 5: lighting equipment.

It would be open to producers to reach agreements with operators of designated collection facilities for a greater degree of separation or sorting of WEEE beyond these minimum standards.

Storage and treatment of WEEE
The Directive sets out specific requirements for the storage and treatment of separately collected WEEE and the Environment Agency has issued a consultation document on the treatment and storage requirements:
http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/commondata/105385/weee_consult_833453.pdf

The draft guidance provides details of the requirements for storage and treatment facilities as well as the fluids and components that must be removed from items of separately collected WEEE.

Establishments carrying out treatment operations will be expected to obtain a permit from the competent authorities. The Government had originally proposed that permits would be issued as part of a new waste permitting regime. Following the cessation of the review of waste permitting, permits for authorised treatment facilities will be issued under amendments to the Waste Management Licensing Regulations

Recovery and recycling
The WEEE Directive recovery, re-use and recycling targets, which must be achieved by 31 December 2006, are summarised in the table below:

Next steps
The DTi’s consultation on the implementation of the Directive and the Environment Agency’s consultation on storage and treatment close at the end of October. It is expected that the Regulations will be brought into force in early 2005 along with the final guidance on both the NCH and storage and treatment requirements.

All the requirements relating to collection, storage, treatment and the NCH will take effect from 13 August 2005.

For further information, the DTI has set up a dedicated WEEE resource on its web site:
http://164.36.164.20/sustainability/weee/index.htm

September 2004