WEEE DIRECTIVE

The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE Directive) is the European Community directive 2002/96/EC on waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) which, together with the RoHS Directive 2002/95/EC, became European Law in February 2003. The WEEE Directive set collection, recycling and recovery targets for all types of electrical goods, with a minimum rate of 4 kilograms per head of population per annum recovered for recycling by 2009. The RoHS Directive set restrictions upon European manufacturers as to the material content of new electronic equipment placed on the market.

The symbol adopted by the European Council to represent waste electrical and electronic equipment comprised a crossed out wheelie bin with or without a single black line underneath the symbol. The black line indicates that goods have been placed on the market after 2005, when the Directive came into force. Goods without the black line were manufactured between 2002 and 2005. In such instances, these are treated as “historic WEEE” and falls outside re-imbursement via producer compliance schemes.

The directive has undergone a number of minor revisions since its inception in 2002. These include updates in 2006 and 2009.

After nine years the Directive was seen as failing to achieve some of its goals, hence the legislation had been amended again. On December 20, 2011 the European Parliament and the European Council agreed on amendments to the Directive, subject to a second-reading vote, which was taken on January 19, 2012.

The changes affect the method for calculating collection rates, which were previously four kg per inhabitant per year. To provide a transitional period of seven years to introduce the revised method of calculation, the present method is retained for the first four years from the time the amended Directive comes into force. For the next three years, commencing with the fifth year after the amendment, the calculation of collection rates will be revised to 45% of the weight of E&E products entering the market. Once this seven years transitional period is over, EU member states will individually select the actual collection options they wish to use.

The directive places WEEE into numerous categories, the first tier being historic and non-historic. Historic WEEE implies equipment placed on the market prior to 2005 and the WEEE directive places the onus upon the owner of the equipment to make provisions for its recycling. Where equipment was placed on the market after 2005, it is known as non-historic WEEE (denoted by a bar underneath the crossed-out wheeled bin symbol^[6]), and it is the responsibility of the producer/distributor to make provisions for its collection and recycling.

The WEEE directive sets a total of 10 categories of WEEE^[7] for reporting purposes.

• Large household appliances
• Small household appliances
• IT and telecommunications equipment
• Consumer equipment
• Lighting equipment
• Electrical and electronic tools
• Toys, leisure and sports equipment
• Medical devices
• Monitoring and control instruments
• Automatic dispenser

The ENERPAT E-WASTE RECYCLING LINE is the advanced processing line for recycling e-waste for nowdays 

The photos as below: