On the 2 January 2007 the UK Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) regulations came into force. WEEE is a new piece of producer responsibility legislation which aims to reduce the amount of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) ending up in landfill. Instead the regulations require the collection, treatment, recycling and environmentally sound disposal of WEEE.

Why are we involved?

The aim of the WEEE legislation is to;
- Make good use of the materials that make up old electrical equipment by recycling rather than disposing in landfill.
- Prevent the negative environmental effects of sending often hazardous electrical equipment to landfill.

Other information

UK households dispose of over 1.2 million tonnes of electrical and electronic waste every
year. This is the equivalent of 150,000 double decker buses and would be enough to fill Wembley Stadium 6 times over.

Much of the UK’s electronic waste ends up in landfill sites, where toxins put communities
at risk. Failure to segregate any type of recyclable material in the home will usually result
in items being disposed of in a landfill sites or being incinerated.

To remind you to recycle, all new electrical products are marked with a crossed outwheeled bin symbol. You can locate your closest participating collection site at www.recycle-more.co.uk
(please remember to have your postcode to hand).

WEEE Statement

Electronic waste is one of the fastest growing waste streams and much of it can be
recycled and resources recovered to make new consumer goods. Please help us to minimise the effect we have on the environment by recycling your waste electrical goods. Please visit www.recyclemore.co.uk where you can find out the locations of collection points near to you.

With effect from July 2007, the UK’s Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE)
Regulations require that all producers of electrical equipment are now obliged to pay for
these items to be recycled when they become waste. These regulations also require that
all retailers both actively assist in delivering a UK wide WEEE collection infrastructure
and encourage the participation of consumers in recycling electronic equipment.

Distributors have to ensure that any WEEE collected through either in store take back, collection on delivery or any other means is treated and disposed of in an environmentally sound manner. Distributors whether they have joined the Distributor Take Back Scheme (DTS) or not, are not allowed to dispose of collected WEEE at Civic Amenities (CA) sites (unless the site allows commercial waste). Instead distributors should contact a Producer Compliance scheme and deliver the WEEE to them to be treated at the cost of the producers. It is likely that the Producer Compliance scheme will ask for the WEEE to be delivered to an approved and Accredited Treatment Facility (AATF), distributors will need to fund the transport of WEEE to the AATF or location specified by the Producer Compliance Scheme.