WEEE Advice to Producers

WEEE stands for Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment. The UK WEEE Regulations took effect from 1st July 2007 and state that, under certain circumstances, the Producer of a piece of electrical or electronic equipment (EEE) must cover the financial costs to get it collected from the final user and have it, and/or other WEEE, recycled at the end of its life.

All companies are impacted by the WEEE Regulations – either as a Producer or a Final User and often as both.

The Policing Authorities

For this legislation these are the various environmental agencies (Environment Agency – England & Wales, Scottish Environmental Protection Agency – Scotland and Environment & Heritage Services – Northern Ireland). For the purposes of this article, references to the Environment Agency are to cover the regional alternatives as relevant.

Producer Definition

A Producer under the WEEE Regulations is defined in law as being:

• The manufacturer – the organisation that manufactures the final product (so not components) is the Producer (unless it is subsequently rebranded – see below)
• The rebrander – an organisation that buys a finished product but puts (or has put) its own brand in place of the manufacturer’s brand. If the manufacturer puts the distributor’s brand on the item, at the distributor’s request, then the distributor is the rebrander and therefore the Producer.
• The importer – an organisation that first brings into the UK the finished item of EEE, is the Producer (unless it is subsequently rebranded – see above).

Producer Requirements

A Producer must register with a WEEE Compliance Scheme each compliance period (calendar year) by the 15th October of the preceding year.
Except for the overlap period at the end of a year, a Producer may not belong to more than one WEEE compliance scheme at any time (other than one for household WEEE and one for non-household WEEE – but that is a very expensive option).

Labelling

All EEE placed on the UK market by the Producer must be labelled with the WEEE symbol (as shown). The brand that they use must have been registered with the Environment Agency via a WEEE Compliance Scheme. Finally the labelling should show clearly that the product was placed on the market after 13th August 2005 – the commonly accepted method is the grey or black bar located under the crossed out wheeled bin.

Data Registration and Fees

As well as the brands that they use, every Producer must submit details of the weight and number of EEE items placed on the market in the UK each quarter, subdivided into the legal categories, to the WEEE Compliance Scheme it has joined. This data is forwarded to the Environment Agency. There are Environment Agency fees to be paid annually as well as the costs of any Compliance Scheme.

Provision of Information

Producers must inform any treatment operation that needs to know, the specifications of the EEE they place on the market

Collection and Recycling Costs

At the end of the EEE product’s life, it becomes WEEE when the final user determines that they wish to discard it. At that point, the Producer is obligated to cover the financial costs of collection from the back door of the final user (if the final user is not a householder) or the uplift from a Dedicated Collection Facility (civic amenity site usually) if the final user is a householder. Additionally the Producer must cover the financial costs of the recycling of the WEEE to meet certain targets.
A good WEEE compliance scheme will co-ordinate the uplift and treatment of WEEE to meet the targets on behalf of its members. Producers need to be clear when they appoint a WEEE Compliance Scheme, for whom that scheme is working – if the parent of the WEEE Compliance Scheme is a waste collection company or a logistics company, then the more waste it can collect, the more profit it will make – albeit the more that the Producer will pay – even if not legally liable to do so. Producers should ensure they get a scheme that operates for them, ideally on a not-for-profit basis so that they are charged only on what they are legally required to finance.

Intrinsic Value of WEEE

A common issue for CESA members is that the intrinsic value of the WEEE is positive (ie there is money tied up in the material that makes up the WEEE). The usual request is that this money be reflected in reduced costs – a very justifiable request. However, if the final user, whose responsibility it is to declare the WEEE, is aware that there may be money tied up in the intrinsic value of the WEEE, they are unlikely to declare it as WEEE in the first place. They can realise that money by getting it delivered to a recycling operation and being paid for it – and the Producer would never know about it. There are no targets to be met as no WEEE is declared, but there are no positive value collections either.

Contaminated WEEE

A producer is not obligated to pay for the collection and treatment of contaminated WEEE. However, if the contaminated WEEE has been through a decontamination process, then it is once again the responsibility of the Producer to pay for its collection and treatment – but the cost of the decontamination is to be covered by the final user.

Hazardous WEEE

If the WEEE contains, or is believed to contain, any hazardous materials, then it can only be removed if it is accompanied by a Hazardous Waste Consignment Note. This is managed by the collecting operation but the cost is charged to the final user and does not form part of the charges met by the Producer.

If the final user has over 200kg of hazardous materials per annum (being the total weight of any items discarded that have hazardous material therein however small a proportion that hazardous material may be of the weight of the whole item), then the premises must be registered with the Environment Agencies and a Hazardous Waste Premises Code be obtained before collections can be made from that address. Again this must be paid for by the final user.

Non Financial Impacts of WEEE

This means that the Producer needs only to consider how the WEEE legislation will impact on its business in financial, commercial and strategic ways and to determine the marketing impacts thereon. Thus a number of individuals are going to be need to be informed in your organisation:

• Knowledgeable customers are going to ask if companies are WEEE compliant. Will your sales staff and receptionists know how to answer or who to put them through to?
• Purchasing staff are going to be asked to include/exclude comments on WEEE in the general purchasing agreements. Do they know what they need to look for?
• Finance staff are going to need to determine whether they need to make reserves or create budgets against the future costs of WEEE. Do they know to do so and if so how are they going to assess how much to reserve/budget?
• The IT department are going to need to ensure that data, hitherto unrequired, is going to need to be collected on weights and destinations of each brand:product mix. Do they know what they have to do, by when, to what level of accuracy?
• The Board need to be aware that the location of the next generation of suppliers, in China or the US, means that the whole impact of the WEEE legislation may fall on your company. It means that anyone outside the EU can sell into the EU at an effective discount. Do they know how this will impact on their deliberations?

In summary, every person will be impacted by this legislation in one way or another. It has hidden under the camouflage of being a piece of ‘environmental’ piece of legislation – but in reality the impacts are almost all strategic and technical.

CESA Members’ Advantage

CESA members have joined a number of different WEEE Compliance Schemes, but the scheme that CESA supports as a Trade Association as being the most favourable for its members and their customers, is B2B Compliance. 23 CESA members have joined B2B Compliance to date. This is a not-for-profit operation designed to keep the costs of collection and recycling in hand while providing the compliance with this legislation as required. Their operation can handle all collections of WEEE – albeit that in some instances the final user will pay and in others the Producer member of B2B Compliance will pay.