The Environment Agency recently issued a list of approved compliance schemes under the requirements of the WEEE regulations.
Schemes shown on the list are as follows:
B2B Compliance – open scheme
B2B WEEE Scheme – open scheme
DHL WEEE Compliance – open scheme
Valpak – open scheme
WEEE Care – open scheme
All the above schemes are “open schemes” in that they are open to members that meet membership criteria. A “closed scheme” would be operated by a company on its own behalf and hence would have only one member.
Further detail on these schemes can be found on the Environment Agency’s website.
It is understood that both Transform and Repic have also received scheme approval, though this occurred after the above list was published by the Agency.
The Agency has also published a provisional list of schemes that are planned to be submitted, to the best of the organisation’s knowledge. The list includes those schemes that have already received approval and can be again found on the EA’s website.
The Environment Agency is the regulator for the majority of elements of both sets of WEEE regulations in England and Wales and is responsible for the following:
- approval of producer compliance schemes;
- managing data on market share, WEEE collection, treatment and reprocessing;
- registering producers of electrical and electronic equipment and maintaining a public register;
- identifying 'free-riders' and bring them into compliance;
- regulating sites that will store and treat WEEE;
- approving treatment facilities and exporters of WEEE so that they are able to issue evidence of treatment and recovery;
- monitoring and enforcing compliance with the treatment and recovery requirements.
A general overview of WEEE is given by the Agency here.