Who do the WEEE Regulations affect?

The WEEE Regulations affect everybody in one way or another but the primary groups affected are:

• Producers, who become responsible for financing the end-of-life treatment of their products
• Distributors, who become responsible in some cases for taking-back end-of-life products when new products are purchased and for providing information to users about the need for recycling and facilities for the disposal of end-of-life products.

A producer is the party which first puts Electrical or Electronic Equipment (EEE) onto the UK market, whether they are manufacturers of EEE, private brand distributors or importers. The primary responsibility is to finance the environmentally sound disposal of their products at end-of-life.
A producer is any person who:

• Manufactures and sells electrical and electronic equipment under their own brand
• Resells, under their own brand, equipment produced by another supplier
• Imports electrical and electronic equipment on a professional basis into an EU Member State

Producers of Electrical and Electronic Equipment (EEE) as listed in Schedule 2 of the UK WEEE Regulations are responsible for financing and ensuring the disposal of end-of-life products in an environmentally sound way arising from both household and non-household users. There are some exemptions and limits to this that can be found in the detail in the Regulations. For Example: non-Household WEEE where there is no like-for-like replacement.

Producers must join a Compliance scheme (or provide their own Environment Agency approved scheme) which will meet this responsibility by managing and paying for the recycling and recovery of their share of this WEEE and report on what they have done to the appropriate Government authority. Full details may be found in the BIS Guidelines.