DEFRA have been undertaking a full consultation on Open Scope, as well as a review of the WEEE Regulations themselves, which will be released later this autumn for a standard 8 week review.
We understand that the full impact assessment on the category changes (from 14 down to 6) will also provide some certainty on what the reporting categories will be for UK Producers in the 2019 compliance period. This will also enable producers to prepare for product re-scoping if the change to six categories does go ahead in the UK. A poll that B2B Compliance ran in our recent training webinar indicated that half of the attendees would need to review the scoping of their products, to determine which of the 6 proposed categories their products would be reportable under. Of these, 54% said that their reporting systems would need to be changed to include product dimensions.
Further information and clarity is expected from the Environment Agency on other Open Scope changes such as the removal of the fixed installation exemption (Large Scale Fixed Installation for professional EEE will remain), and the removal of the household lighting equipment exemption.
B2B Compliance will communicate these results and guidance in a number of ways; alongside member meetings we will host a commercial update webinar early 2018 (date to be confirmed), and provide updates via our bulletin and this news section on our website.
Please contact us on 0845 680 9829, or membership@b2bcompliance.org.uk if you have any questions.