What is the WEEE legislation?
The WEEE Directive is a wide ranging piece of European environmental legislation. It is one of a small 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 those products become waste.
At European level the WEEE Directive applies this principle in relation to electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) in order to address the environmental impact of such equipment at end of life by encouraging separate collection, subsequent treatment, re-use, recovery, recycling and environmentally sound disposal.
Under this EU level WEEE Directive framework each EU member state has implemented its provisions into its own legislation and in the UK this is through the implementation of the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Regulations 2006 or more commonly referred to as the WEEE Regulations.
The WEEE Regulations were laid before parliament on 12 December 2006 with the main requirements and obligations on producers and distributors of EEE coming into effect from 1st July 2007. Obligated Producers of EEE have until the 15th March 2007 to sign up to an approved producer compliance scheme (PCS) such as Comply Direct Ltd.
