Guides

The U.K. Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has released the conclusions of its implementation review on the WEEE directive dealing with recycling electrical waste, which essentially lays out how the law will be actually carried out in the U.K.

The U.K. Environment Agency has reminded companies that produce electrical and electronic equipment to register in order to comply with the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment regulations.

Chaos. Confusion. Complicated. These are all words to describe this last week of the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment directive among the European Union's member states. With a scheduled deadline for final legislation upon us, several EU countries still have not transposed the directive into law.

The purpose of the EU Commission's directives—Restriction of Hazardous Substances and Waste from Electric and Electronic Equipment  was to make the environment safer for the planet and its inhabitants, and in time it will. Meanwhile, it has left a very unsafe business environment for some companies.

The authority of implementation has created elaborate rules for various kinds of WEEE—electronic and electronic waste products—which companies, producers, and the authority in charge are willing to describe at length.

WEEE—the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment regulation among the European Union's member states that enforces electronics and electrical product recycling and comes into play this month—has followed the same path that all environmental compliance legislation seems to be on, one of complications, confusion and chaos.

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has published its long-awaited advice on the implementation in the U.K. of the European WEEE directive, which tells companies how they must manage their electrical waste by supporting recycling of products.

Conflicting advice, vague legislation and a lack of compliance schemes are the realities of WEEE, the electrical waste legislation, in the U.K., according to law firm Eversheds.