UK Publishes WEEE Regulations for Consultation

The WEEE Directive requires that producers of electrical and electronic equipment ("EEE") meet the costs of the collection and recycling or other treatment of WEEE, as well as establishing certain obligations for distributors and retailers. The deadline for implementation of the Directive was 13 August 2005 but the consultation sets out that the UK will not implement the main provisions until 1 July 2007, (although the regulations themselves will come into force on 1 January 2007.)

The key proposals in the DTI consultation include:

• The introduction of "evidence notes" for the treatment, recycling and recovery of WEEE. This evidence is to be provided by Authorised Treatment Facilities. It is proposed that there will be an end of year settlement between producers/compliance schemes via an exchange system.
• Obligatory registration of "producers" (manufacturers, importers or own-labellers) with approved producer compliance schemes.
• A national Distributor Takeback Scheme is to establish a network of designated collection facilities to allow consumers to return WEEE for recycling or reuse.
• Producers may choose to show the cost of handling historical WEEE in the price of new EEE (i.e. EEE that was put on the market before 13 August 2005) but there will not be an obligation to do so.

The consultation provides a timetable for implementation. The key dates for producers are as follows:

• 1 January 2007: WEEE Regulations in force
• 28 February 2007: Deadline for approval of producer compliance schemes operating in the first compliance period (1 April 2007 - 31 December 2007)
• 15 March 2007: Deadline for producers to register with producer compliance schemes
• 1 April 2007: Producers must ensure all EEE placed on the market after this date is appropriately marked (with the crossed out wheelie bin, date code and producer mark) and that information is made available to treatment facilities
• 1 July 2007: Start of full producer and producer compliance scheme obligations; deadline for establishing take-back systems for household WEEE

This article was written by Paul Sheridan and Amanda Beery for Law-Now, CMS Cameron McKenna's free online information service.