We have been advised on behalf of the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPS&S, formerly known as Regulatory Delivery) which is the new regulator for the distributor obligations under the WEEE regulations, to make sure we kindly remind our members of the following WEEE obligations as a “Distributor”:

Under the UK Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) regulations 2013 (including amendments) a distributor is defined as “any person in the supply chain who makes an item of EEE available on the market but a distributor may also be a producer”. Make available on the market means “any supply of a product for distribution, consumption or use on the market of a Member State in the course of a commercial activity, whether in return for payment or free of charge”.

Therefore, even if you are fulfilling your obligations as a producer (as you may import, manufacture or rebrand EEE within the UK),  you may also be a distributor (including selling on-line or providing free of charge) of consumer or dual use EEE (guidance available here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/business-to-consumer-b2c-and-business-to-business-b2b-eee-and-weee-how-to-correctly-identify) and we recommend that you ensure you are also fulfilling your distributor obligations.

As a distributor of consumer or dual use EEE you must offer take back on a one for one, like for like basis, meaning when a new product is purchased an equivalent piece of EEE can be returned. Alternatively, if you are supplying EEE to consumers you can join the UK’s Distributor Takeback Scheme (DTS) where you make a payment to support Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRCs) and can then advertise the list of HWRCs to your customers.

A report released by the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa) has shown that there is an improvement in terms of compliance across Scottish Waste Management Firms. The report shown a compliance rate of 90.35% in 2016 which is up from 72.48% in 2009. Sadly it still recorded the highest number of cases referred to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (42%), final warning letters (46%) and statutory notices served (48%), as well as the most convictions (38%) were in the Waste Management Sector.

The report released by SEPA has showed a six year high for compliance in Scottish Waste Companies. With 91.7% of all sites recorded as ‘excellent’, ‘good’ or ‘broadly compliant’, Sepa says the waste sector “has long held an unenviable record of falling foul” of the regulations.

The EU have recycled more than 3million tonnes of electrical waste since 2002. This equates to preventing the emission of more than 32 million tonnes of CO2, according to research undertaken by the pan-European WEEE compliance company. The CEO of ERP has said “Treating 3 million tonnes of WEEE shows that the ERP has contributed significantly to the EU circular economy and proves that extended producer responsibility in a competitive environment brings huge benefits for the environment at reasonable cost to producers. It also promotes innovation, which leads to higher quality treatment”.

The UK has collected 600,000 tonnes since 2002 making it Europes biggest contributor. 

A flat rate of £3.50 per tonne has been introduced using a method which was drawn up by the Joint Trade Association.  The fee has been put into force as an alternative mechanism that compliance schemes and obligated business can use if they have insufficient recycling evidence to meet their WEEE collection targets for the year. Targets are usually met through acquiring evidence of recycling for material collected at civic amenity sites.

The Environment Agency have recently undertake a review to consider changes on its charging system. This review came to a close this week. 

The review was undertaken to consider the following: 

• regimes within the Environmental Permitting Regulations 2016
• radioactive substances regulation nuclear and non-nuclear permits
• marine licences
• Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Regulations 2013
• Control of Major Accident Hazards Regulations 2015
• European Union Emissions Trading System
• definition of waste services
• planning advice

WEEE Light have written to the WEEE Scheme Forum (of which they are a member) to raise concerns regarding how opportunities presented during the consultation period were handled.