What is WEEE waste and how can you recycle it?

Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) legislation covers a lot of the technology used in modern working. Anything that is powered either by a battery or mains usually falls under the umbrella of WEEE. The regulations have ten broad categories of WEEE that are covered by legislation:

• Large household appliances – This includes items such as fridges, microwaves, or washing machines.
• Small household appliances – For example, irons, toasters, or clocks.
• IT and telecommunications equipment – This includes telephones, personal computers, or copying equipment.
• Consumer equipment – For example, radios, televisions, and musical instruments
• Lighting equipment – This includes straight and compact fluorescent tubes and high intensity discharge lamps. This doesn’t include filament bulbs unless they are LED.
• Electrical and electronic tools – For example, drills, sewing machines, and electronic lawnmowers.
• Toys, leisure, and sports equipment – This could be games consoles, running machines, or electric trains.
• Medical devices – This covers items such as dialysis machines, medical freezers, or cardiology equipment. However, there are exceptions for implantable medical devices or ones that or infective at the end of their life cycle.
• Monitoring and control equipment – For example, smoke detectors or heating regulators.
• Automatic dispensers – This covers items such as hot drinks dispensers or money dispensers.

However, there are some exceptions. Products for military use and systems built within other systems, such as built in SatNavs in cars, are not included under the legislation. This is also the case for larger industrial tools or large fixed installations.

The Waste Electronic Equipment Regulations 2013 provide guidance to producers and distributors on how they should manage WEEE and the rules on disposing this type of waste. The regulations ensure that people who produce and sell electrical goods are responsible for what happens to them once they’ve reached the end of their lifecycle.

Producers are stated within the legislation as people who:

• Manufacture and sell EEE under their own brand in the UK,
• Buy and make changes to EEE to rebrand and sell in the UK,
• Import EEE on a commercial basis into the UK,
• Supply EEE to the UK through distance selling as they are established outside of the UK.

The obligation depends on how much electrical goods they have placed on the UK market in the previous calendar (compliance) year. If they’ve produced more than five tonnes of electrical goods, they must join the product compliance scheme (PCS). If they’ve produced less than five tonnes, they can register directly with their environmental regulator.

It is your legal responsibility to ensure that your business’ electrical waste is disposed of correctly. If WEEE is not disposed of correctly, it can have damaging effects on the environment. Some of the items covered by WEEE legislation, such as computers or lighting, can contain hazardous materials. These materials are extremely dangerous if they end up in landfills. They could soak into the landfill soils or pollute water supplies near the landfill sites. This could end up infecting the food chain and lead to harmful toxins entering our bodies.

A lot of these items may also have confidential data on them, such as computers of printers. Therefore, it is important to ensure that these items are disposed of in a secure way. Data shredding is a good way to give you the peace of mind that your confidential data has been disposed of correctly and securely.