WEEE- Waste electrical and electronic equipment  

In the UK, large amounts of electrical and electronic waste are generated every year.  The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Regulations aim to reduce the amount of this waste going to landfill and improve recovery and recycling rates.
You must abide by WEEE Regulations if you:

  • manufacture or import electrical or electronic equipment
  • distribute electrical or electronic equipment
  • generate any electrical or electronic waste
  • collect electrical or electronic waste from your customers for treatment or disposal
  • operate a waste treatment facility
  • export electrical or electronic waste.

You may be prosecuted if you fail to comply with the regulations so ensure that you contact a licensed waste and resources company, like The William Tracey Group, to dispose of your WEEE waste.

Waste carriers

If you get your waste taken away by a waste carrier, you must ensure that they are authorised to carry waste.
Anyone removing waste from your site must be one of the following:

  • a registered carrier of controlled waste
  • exempt from registration as a carrier of controlled waste
  • a waste collection authority in England and Wales
  • a district council in Northern Ireland
  • a waste disposal authority in Scotland

Registered carriers should be able to provide a current certificate of registration or a certified copy if you ask to see it. This certificate will show when their registration expires. Please note that a photocopy does not provide evidence of registration – you should ask to see the original or a certified copy. You can take a photocopy for your records, date it and write on it that you have seen the original.
Other resources available to you are the public registers held by your environmental regulators.  If your carrier is registered they should be on one of the following websites

  • Environment Agency: Public registers
  • NIEA: Registered waste carriers and transporters
  • SEPA: Registered carriers, brokers and professional collectors and transporters

Packaging

If your business makes, fills, sells or handles packaging or packaging materials you must comply with packaging regulations.  If you fail to comply with the regulations you could be prosecuted and fined.
The packaging waste regulations ensure that businesses are responsible for recovering and recycling UK packaging waste.
There are two sets of regulations you may need to comply with:


1. The Packaging (Essential Requirements) Regulations apply to you if your business produces packaged products, or places packaging or packaged goods on the market.


2. The Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations apply to you if your business handles more than 50 tonnes of packaging in a year and has a turnover of more than £2 million.


What is special waste?

Special waste has hazardous properties that can be harmful to a humans health or to the environment.
Some examples of special waste include:

  • solvents
  • asbestos
  • chemical wastes
  • healthcare wastes
  • WEEE
  • fluorescent light tubes
  • lead-acid batteries
  • oily sludge

In Scotland, the terms special waste and hazardous waste now mean the same thing. This is because under Scottish law, 'special waste' is any waste that is defined as hazardous by the European Hazardous Waste Directive.
Any waste classified as hazardous in the European Waste Catalogue (EWC) is, accordingly, 'special waste' in Scotland. The EWC lists all wastes and each waste type is given a six-digit code. Wastes classed as hazardous are identified in the EWC with an asterisk (*):
SEPA has produced guidance that:

  • will help you determine if your waste is special
  • lists the waste types in the EWC
  • provides advice on classifying and assessing special waste.

Visit www.sepa.org.uk for further information.

Contaminated land

As a result of past industrial activities, many areas of the UK’s land has been contaminated.  This contamination could be a hazard to the environment and human health.
It is important to note that you could be responsible for the cost of cleaning up contaminated land if:

  • you cause or allow land to be contaminated
  • you own land that is contaminated.

In Northern Ireland provisions to deal with contaminated land have been established but are not yet in force. It is likely, that when they are brought into operation, the regulations will be similar to those in England, Scotland and Wales.