Waste electrical and electronic equipment WEEE

The European Environment Agency defines Waste electrical and electronic equipment or WEEE as

"electrical or electronic equipment (EEE) which is waste within the meaning of Article 1(a) of Directive 75/442/EEC, including all components, sub-assemblies and consumables, which are part of the product at the time of discarding . Council Directive 75/442/EEC of 15 July 1975 on waste: 'waste' means any substance or object which the holder disposes of or is required to dispose of pursuant to the provisions of national law in force."

This type of material will usually fall under the WEEE Directive. The WEEE Directive aims to contribute to sustainable production and consumption by;

• preventing the creation of WEEE as a first priority
• contributing to the efficient use of resources and the retrieval of secondary raw materials through re-use, recycling and other forms of recovery
• improving the environmental performance of everyone involved in the life cycle of EEE

In order to achieve these objectives, the Directive

• requires the separate collection and proper treatment of WEEE and sets targets for their collection as well as for their recovery and recycling
• helps European countries fight illegal waste exports more effectively by making it harder for exporters to disguise illegal shipments of WEEE
• reduces the administrative burden by calling for the harmonisation of national EEE registers and of the reporting format

The Waste Electric and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Regulations 2013 became law in the UK on the 1st of January 2014 and replaced the 2006 Regulations. Those Regulations transposed the main provisions of Directive 2012/19/EU on WEEE which recast the previous Directive 2002/96/EC. The scope of the Regulations were extended in January 2019 to cover further categories of electric and electronic equipment (EEE).

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