WEEE and RoHS Directives – The INPS Position

What are the regulations?

The WEEE Directive

The WEEE Directive is “The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive (2002/96/EC)”, and sets criteria for the collection, treatment, recycling and recovery of WEEE; its aim is to minimise the disposal of WEEE at unsorted municipal sites; it makes producers responsible for financing the bulk of these activities, and puts an onus on distributors (e.g. INPS) and retailers to provide take-back facilities to consumers. There are different rules governing Consumer sales and Business to Business (B2B) sales (which is the category that covers INPS).The regulations cover 10 categories of products, including IT equipment.

The regulations passed in to law in January 2007, and were effective from 1st July 2007.

The main obligations are placed on the “Producer” – that is

  • The manufacturer (if EC based);
  • The importer (if the goods are manufactured outside the EC);
  • The seller of a product if it is sold under his own brand.


The producer must register with the Environment Agency (EA), and provide annual sales statistics. They will meet the cost of recycling of WEEE based on their overall percentage market share. They must mark EEE with the symbol of a crossed wheelie bin. INPS is registered as a Producer of WEEE (although from May 2008 it no longer “produced” product that will become WEEE), and has been allocated the registration number WEE/EH0061TU

When conducting business in a B2B environment, the retailer / distributor must (if requested) “take back” for re-cycling an equal amount of like product to that sold, and pass it to an Authorised Treatment Facility (ATF). INPS works with third party specialist agencies to arrange collection and recycling of B2B WEEE. It should be noted that there will be a charge for this take back. Producers will already have increased product costs to allow for the ultimate recycling charges that they will incur when their products reach end of life, and are presented for recycling.

This is just a very brief summary of the regulations, and the full detail can be found at http://www.rohs.gov.uk/Docs/links/WEEE directive.pdf. Customers may rest assured that INPS works to meet all sections of the WEEE directive that apply to them.

The RoHS Directive

 

The RoHS Directive is “The Reduction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment Regulations 2005 (Directive 2002/95/EC)”. This directive came in to force on 1st July 2006.

The directive makes it an offence  to “Place on the Market” after 1st July 2006” any new EEE containing more than a permitted concentration of lead, cadmium, mercury, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyl (PBB) and polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE). 

The main onus of meeting these regulations is, as for WEEE, on the “producer” (see WEEE notes), but there is a duty on distributors and retailers to ensure that the products that they are selling meet the regulations, and INPS has taken, and continues to take, all necessary due diligence steps to ensure that this is the case with all products that it sells, and will bring to Market in the future.

The full regulations are available at http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2005/20052748.htm