The Haz Guide

The Hazardous Waste Regulations (and business waste)

Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE)

elec goods WEEE covers a wide variety of potentially hazardous materials and as for other HHW, local authorities have an obligation to provide for the separate collection of WEEE. However, the WEEE Directive and WEEE regulations provide for producer and distributor responsibility.
Distributors are funding a network of Designated Collection Facilities (DCF), most of which are at HWRCs.

Producers have responsibility for financing the collection, treatment and reuse/recycling of material deposited at DCFs, therefore, all WEEE collected by local authorities, including the hazardous element, can be passed to producer compliance schemes for transport, treatment and recycling at cost to the producer. Local Authorities have 2 options:

Apply for their HWRCs and WTS to become DCFs, which means producers will pick up all costs associated with the collection of WEEE from DCFs and counts towards LA recycling targets.
Stay outside producer responsibility WEEE system and fund the treatment and recovery of any separately collected WEEE at their sites and WTS.

Requirements for DCFs are set out in the WEEE regulations. These give legal force to a code of practice on the arrangements between local authorities and producer compliance schemes. The Code of Practice has been developed between the local authorities, producer compliance schemes and waste management companies. If local authorities want to operate in this manner, they must register their HWRCs and those sites to which bulky waste and trade waste is taken, as DCFs. Any site that becomes a DCF and is open to the public must actively maximise the separate collection of WEEE.
Household WEEE should be separated into the following five categories available at DCFs:

A) Large household appliances other than cooling appliances
B) Cooling appliances containing refrigerants*
C) Display equipment containing Cathode Ray Tubes (CRTs)*
D) Gas discharge lamps*
E) All other WEEE
* The Hazardous Waste Regulations also apply to these categories of WEEE.

The above five categories are the norm although DCFs may collect fewer than five categories if site constraints make it impossible and there are other facilities locally that householders can take their WEEE too. The Valpak website lists all councils and organisations that have a registered site and the categories of WEEE they accept. It should be noted that Category C also includes LCD and plasma screens.
Material from sites that are not registered within the WEEE system will remain subject to the existing hazardous waste legislation and the associated costs will remain with the local authority.

Hazardous waste category
Asbestos	Gas bottles
Automotive batteries	Household and garden chemicals
Clinical waste	Household batteries
Explosives	Motoring products
Fire extinguishers	Oils and oil filters
Fluorescent tubes	Paints and related DIY products
Fridges/freezers	WEEE
Other problematic wastes
Aerosols	Radioactive Waste
Tyres	Vegetable oil

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Download the Haz Guide

i	Related links

producer and distributor responsibility

BERR -

Code of Practice

Registered sites list

Valpak