• Making it easy
• WEEE knowledge bank
  • Introduction
  • The legislation
  • Who is obligated?
  • Scope of WEEE
  • What you need to do
  • Household (B2C) system
  • Non-household (B2B) system
  • Distributor obligations
  • Agency fees
  • Offences under regulations
  • Further information
• Packaging knowledge bank
• Batteries knowledge bank
• CIO hub
• Comply Direct documents
• Useful links

The WEEE regulations

The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Regulations 2006 is a wide ranging piece of European environmental legislation that came into force in January 2007 and was fully implemented on 1 July 2007.

It is based on a number of European Directives which implement the principle of extended producer responsibility. Under this principle, producers are required to take financial responsibility for the environmental impact of products they place on the market, especially when they become waste. They affect approximately 5,000 UK producer obligated businesses.  

The WEEE regulations have an important impact on manufacturers, importers, sellers, distributors and users of most types of Electrical and Electronic Equipment (EEE).

The purpose of the Regulations is to transpose the bulk of the provisions of the EC WEEE directive which aims to address the environmental impacts of WEEE and to encourage its separate collection, and subsequent treatment, reuse, recovery, recycling and environmentally-sound disposal. It seeks to improve the environmental performance of all those involved in the life-cycle of EEE.