What is the WEEE Directive?
WEEE (Waste Electrical & Electronic Equipment)
The WEEE Directive aims to minimise the impacts of electrical and electronic equipment on the environment during their life times and when they become waste. It applies to a huge spectrum of products. It encourages and sets criteria for the collection, treatment, recycling and recovery of waste electrical and electronic equipment.
The directive is aimed at reducing the amount of electrical and electronic waste that goes into landfill. Manufacturers, distributors and resellers of Electrical and Electronic Equipment (such as IT equipment), must provide adequate recycling channels.
http://www.dti.gov.uk/.../file35992.pdf
When will the new legislation become law?
It is important to note that any equipment on your premises manufactured before July 2007 is YOUR RESPONSBILITY to dispose of, and any costs must be met by your business.
It is your responsibility to appoint a disposal agent such as Waste-IT to ensure you comply with all WEEE regulations, and are provided with the relevant reports, i.e. Weight Data, Lifecycle Management, Disposal processes etc.
Any relevant products manufactured after July 2007 will be accompanied by documentation from the Producer advising you who to contact when the product reaches the end of its life.
Effectively, the Producer must demonstrate a process for disposing of WEEE. At this point, there is still much discussion as to how this cost will be presented to Business users, but it is likely that when the legislation is agreed, each Business user will be free to appoint whoever offers them the best environmental, most secure and most cost effective solution.
RoHS Directive
The aim of the RoHS directive is to reduce the amount of harmful substances used in manufacturing and to ensure that equipment containing any harmful substances is disposed of in an environmentally friendly way. Organisations that produce just 200kg or more of hazardous waste per year will need to register annually with the Environment Agency (under the Restriction of Hazardous Substances Act).
This amount equates to around 10-15 PCs and monitors! It is an offence to dispose of hazardous waste unless registered, and for waste carriers to collect waste from an unregistered site (unless exemptions apply). A valid consignment note must be issued by your waste carrier for the disposal of any amount of hazardous waste even if you do not need to register as a hazardous waste producer.
http://europa.eu.int/.../l_03720030213en00190023.pdf
Data Protection Act (1998)
It is your legal responsibility to ensure personal information about your staff or clients does not enter the public domain. The only way to guarantee compliance is to wipe (not format) the hard disk with specialist software or physically destroy the drive through shredding. Even compliance with the WEEE and RoHS directives, does not demonstrate reasonable steps to comply with the Act. Data wiping is a time consuming process that most companies do not know how to do (this is not formatting the hard disk - which is recoverable).
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/.../19980029.htm
Where do I go as a home user?
As a Home user, you will not have to meet the costs of disposal. The retail industry has agreed financial provision through market share to fund disposal costs, to encourage Home users to dispose of WEEE responsibly.
Waste can be taken either to your local municipal collection facility, can be given to leading electrical retailers under the 'Retailer Take-Back Scheme', or can be taken to one of the new DCF (Designated collection facilities) sites, which are currently being set-up under final drafts of the legislation. The idea behind each of these schemes is that it provides near-by, convenient, free of charge collection sites for the Public.