Immediate action needed to meet WEEE compliance deadline

By Richard Wilson -- 2/1/2007

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 (WEEE) regulations.

Producers of electrical and electronic equipment in England and Wales have until March 15 to join an approved WEEE compliance scheme.

“From July 1, 2007, producers of electrical and electronic equipment [EEE] will be responsible for paying for the treatment and recycling of products at the end of their life,” said Liz Parkes, head of waste at the Environment Agency. 
 
As part of the registration process, producers will need to pay a registration fee to the compliance scheme they would like to join and supply data on how much electrical and electronic equipment they placed on the market in 2006.

They also need to say whether this equipment was for household or business use.

Producers are being encouraged to join compliance schemes that will help them by collecting and recycling products on their behalf.

“We have now started to approve the compliance schemes that applied to us during January. We urge producers including manufacturers, rebranders and importers, to start exploring potential compliance schemes and join one as soon as possible in order to be ready for July 1 - 'WEEE Day,'" said Parkes.

Each compliance scheme will then have until March 31 to register its members with the Environment Agency, which will issue each producer with a WEEE producer registration number. The producer will need to give this registration number to anyone who distributes or sells their products.

Electronics Weekly is the London-based sister publication of Electronic News, part of the EDN Network.

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