Following discovery of illegal shipments of WEEE to Nigeria, Ghana and Pakistan several operators have recently received substantial fines at the Crown Court.
Crucial to the cases was the issue of liability and the appeal ruling was that strict liability did apply at all stages of the chain and it was no defence to say someone else in the chain had carried out tests on the waste electrical items to ensure they met export rules. While the judge ruled that there is a legitimate trade of secondhand goods certain steps must be taken to ensure that electronic and electrical items must not be waste. At what point the liability doesn’t apply what not made clear – particularly in the light of material being found abroad (not connected with this case) that has been sourced from hospitals, police forces and local authorities etc…
While Andy Higham, manager of the Environment Agency’s national crime team, stated that the duty of care is there to ensure that methods for dealing with end of life goods are proper and the meet the demands of environmental regulations he didn’t elaborate that the duty of care is, primarily, a responsibility of the waste generator.