The Department of Business, Innovation and Skills have recently reviewed and published new WEEE regulations, in the form of the waste electrical and electronic equipment (amendment) regulations 2015. These new, amended, regulations seek to tidy the existing regulations, which came into effect at the beginning of 2014.
The key changes reflect some legal adjustments which were considered necessary to improve efficiency in the WEEE system and incorporation of developments in the regulations since they were first published, such as:
- Reg 27A/28 Provides for notification and adjustment of a scheme household WEEE target if a member goes into administration/liquidation/receivership
- Reg 51 Maintains prohibition on the visible recycling fee for a household EEE product to end users
- Reg 52 Maintains provision for the repair/service sector to have the same right of return as Distributors
As for other updates, you may remember that B2B Compliance were strongly lobbying for the netting off of EEE exports in 2014. This paid off when guidance was published allowing this netting off for the 2015 compliance period. As guidance can change more regularly, we are pleased to say that this netting off of EEE exports has now become part of the new amended regulations.
These amendments were published on 3rd December 2015, without consultation since no policy changes were made, coming into force on 25th December 2015.