Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive

The WEEE symbol.

The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE Directive) is the European Community directive 2002/96/EC on waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) which, together with the RoHS Directive 2002/95/EC, became European Law in February 2003, setting collection, recycling and recovery targets for all types of electrical goods, with a minimum rate of 4 kilograms per head of population per annum recovered for recycling by 2009.

Directive revisions

The directive has undergone a number of minor revisions since its inception in 2002. These include updates in 2006 and 2009.

Member state implementation

The directive imposes the responsibility for the disposal of waste electrical and electronic equipment on the manufacturers or distributors of such equipment. It requires that those companies establish an infrastructure for collecting WEEE, in such a way that "Users of electrical and electronic equipment from private households should have the possibility of returning WEEE at least free of charge". The directive saw the formation of national "producer compliance schemes", into which manufacturers and distributors paid an annual fee for the collection and recycling of associated waste electronics from household waste recycling centres.

Deadlines

The WEEE Directive obliged the then twenty-five EU member states to transpose its provisions into national law by 13 August 2004. Only Cyprus met this deadline. On 13 August 2005, one year after the deadline, all member states except for the UK had transposed at least framework regulations. The WEEE Directive was transposed into UK law in 2006, and was active the following year.

Categorizations of WEEE

The directive places WEEE into numerous categories, the first tier being historic and non-historic. Historic WEEE implies equipment placed on the market prior to 2005 and the WEEE directive places the onus upon the owner of the equipment to make provisions for its recycling. Where equipment was placed on the market after 2005, it is known as non-historic WEEE (denoted by a bar underneath the crossed-out wheeled bin symbol), and it is the responsibility of the producer/distributor to make provisions for its collection and recycling.

The WEEE directive sets a total of 10 categories of WEEE for reporting purposes.

• Large household appliances
• Small household appliances
• IT and telecommunications equipment
• Consumer equipment
• Lighting equipment
• Electrical and electronic tools
• Toys, leisure and sports equipment
• Medical devices
• Monitoring and control instruments
• Automatic dispensers

UK implementation

Prior to the implementation of the WEEE directive in the UK, waste electronic and electrical equipment was disposed of in the household (municipal) waste stream. Exclusions applied to electrical and electronic equipment that was deemed hazardous. Hazardous wastes are derived (issued with a universal EU descriptor) from the European Waste Catalogue, which denotes wastes with a six digit number in three sets of two. Hazardous wastes are denoted with an asterisk at the end of the number. Hazardous electronic wastes comprise:

• Uninterruptable power supplies, lead-acid batteries
• Cathode ray tubes (televisions, computer monitors)
• Fluorescent tubes, backlights to laptop screens, thin-film transistors
• Electrical/electronic equipment containing polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB)
• Fridges and freezers, due to chlorofluorocarbon (CFC), an ozone depleting substance

WEEE that is delivered to household waste recycling centres (HWRC), also known as designated collection facilities (DCFs), is collected by or delivered to approved authorised treatment facilities (AATFs). The waste electrical and electronic equipment is then weighed and categorized in accordance with the directive.

Post re-processing (recycling), total volumes of each category are reported to the producer compliance scheme and the reprocessor is reimbursed accordingly. Totals of obligated WEEE for all AATFs are collated by the environment agency on a quarterly basis and reported to the EU.

Historically, there were problems with the implementation of the producer compliance schemes due to a "double counting" and reporting of reprocessed WEEE to producer compliance schemes. This arose where obligated WEEE was partially treated by the first AATF to receive the waste, prior to it being passed onto a second AATF for further treatment. Both the first and second AATF would then claim against the same waste electronics, resulting in a "net debt" against the wastes being treated.

Additional legislation that applies is:

• The Environmental Protection (Duty of Care) Regulations 1991
• Hazardous Waste Regulations (England & Wales) 2005
• Waste Framework Directive, or Directive 2008/98/EC

The management of WEEE is applied via the waste hierarchy, employing the 3 Rs: reduce, reuse, recycle. In January 2012, proposals were debated by the European Parliament to recast the WEEE Directive. The proposals included increasing recycling rates. The recast directive no longer included reuse of WEEE via repair and refurbishment.

Public awareness

Construction sheet for the WEEE crossed-out wheelie bin logo.

In April 2005 the Royal Society of Arts in the UK (in conjunction with Canon) unveiled a 7 metre tall sculpture titled WEEE Man on London's South Bank, made from 3.3 tonnes of electrical goods - the average amount of electrical waste one UK individual creates in a lifetime. The giant figure was subsequently moved to the Eden Project in Cornwall as part of a UK tour.

See also

• Computer recycling
• Electronic Waste Recycling Act
• Digger gold
• Electronic waste
• Green computing
• RoHS
• eDay
• Electronic waste by country
• China RoHS

External links

• European Commission WEEE page
  • RoHS directive
  • WEEE directive
• Waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), The Environment Agency (UK government)
• WEEE Man
• WEEE Forum
• VCA- The UK Enforcement Body for WEEE Distributor Obligations
• More on WEEE from Electronics Weekly
• Veolia ES (UK) Ltd- Information on the UK WEEE Regulations
• WEEE registration in Germany