According to the WEEE Directive, since August 13, 2005, manufacturers of electronic and electrical equipment circulating in the EU market must bear the responsibility of paying their own recycling fees for scrapped products in a legal sense. At the same time, EU member states are obliged to formulate their own recycling plans for electronic and electrical products and establish relevant supporting recycling facilities, So that end users of electronic and electrical products can easily and free dispose of scrapped equipment.
Scope of application
Large household appliances; Small household appliances; It and communication equipment; Consumer electronic and electrical equipment; lighting; Electronic and electrical tools (except large fixed industrial tools); Toys, leisure and sports equipment; Medical equipment; Detection and control instruments; vending machine.
Excluding: equipment, weapons, munitions and war materials related to important security interests of Member States.
Type of WEEE
There are two main types of waste electrical and electronic equipment:
1. Household WEEE: Yes, they are their voices. This includes many electrical appliances found and used in the home. They have a wide variety, from televisions to refrigerators, from lamps to routers, from air conditioners to a billion other things that make home life easier.
2. Non household WEEE: These are large appliances and equipment usually found in the company. They are used for manufacturing purposes. They may include industrial generators, large ovens, batteries, conveyors, etc.
In general, when classifying household and non household appliances, the following factors should be considered: performance, size and weight, power supply and voltage.
WEEE regulations are multifaceted
·It aims to regulate and eventually curb the production of environmentally unfriendly and unsafe electrical appliances.
·It aims to encourage the habit of recycling and reuse.
·It can also ensure proper recovery and recycling of waste
·It works with producers to ensure that the concepts of recycling and reuse are considered in production. Therefore, it ensures an electrical design that is easy to recycle.
Who is affected by WEEE regulations?
WEEE regulations and directives affect the following populations:
1. Producers
If you meet the following conditions and decide which sales method to adopt, you are the producer:
·Responsible for the production and manufacturing process of electrical appliances
·Electrical equipment is sold or resold in the name of your brand
·Large scale professional import or export of electrical appliances to EU Member States
In short, according to the reform of WEEE regulations on January 1, 2014, if you put electrical and electronic equipment into the UK market by importing, manufacturing, selling, resale or even renaming, you are the manufacturer. The manufacturer must be registered with the environmental protection agency.
2. Issuer
A distributor is a person who provides electrical and electronic equipment commercially to one or more groups that need to use them. Please note that although producers import or export, distributors sell only within the jurisdiction of one country. In addition, the distributor can also provide leased or leased electrical equipment, which is not necessarily new. However, in a wider range, distributors even include all manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers.
3. Treatment facilities
These companies can include any company interested in recycling these devices to produce raw materials that can be used to replicate the same or completely new products. These facilities may involve the recycling of plastics, metals, nylon or any other materials. They must be approved treatment facilities and their technology must comply with the best available technical guidelines for treatment, recovery and recycling (bartrt) and other guidelines.
4. Local authorities
The government has ultimate power in this land. They first invented these regulations and directives. They usually have no compliance obligations other than the responsibility to recover non household weees.
Although there are many complexities and complexities of waste electrical and electronic equipment, these are the basic knowledge to understand.
