Just waiting around the corner for UK companies are two pieces of environmental protection legislation that may just turn the electrical and electronics equipment industries on their heads.
The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Regulations (WEEE, yes - an unfortunate acronym that!) and the Restriction of the use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment Regulations (RoHS) are in the final stages of a governmental consultation. They are being produced in order to implement Directives 2002/96/EC on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment and 2002/95/EC on the Restriction of the use of certain Hazardous Substances in electrical and electronic equipment.
If adopted in their proposed form, the WEEE Regulations will see all those companies who manufacture, distribute and sell electrical or electronic equipment (let's call it EEE) hit with the burden of ensuring that the goods they produce or sell are processed through a suitable treatment facility when returned by the end user. They will need to ensure that a significant percentage (on average 65%) is reused, recycled and recovered - and all this at that their own expense. And just to complicate things further, they'll need to have the correct documentation to prove they've reached this figure.
Oh and we forgot to say, waiting in the background is the government, who are going to charge the manufacturers, distributors and all those who sell EEE an annual charge to register this reuse, recycle and recovery burden.
Following in the same vein, the RoHS will restrict the use of certain hazardous substances used in EEE construction and components to reduce the amount of harmful substances finding their way into landfill sites.PLASA has made available the draft regulations, draft guidance and the partial Regulatory Impact Assessment for both sets of proposed Regulations on the PLASA website in PDF format at -www.plasa.org/standards/consultation/
This consultation is just that, a consultation, so they want to hear from you. Don't waste this opportunity to put your views forward. You can respond as an individual to the address in the documents or if you send your views to the PLASA Technical Resources Office, we will collate your responses and present them to Government on your behalf. Just send them to Ron Bonner, PLASA's Technical Resources Manager at
