RID UK: The WEEE Directive - some background

   "the prevention of waste electrical and electronic equipment and in addition, the re-use, recycling and other forms of recovery of such waste so as to reduce the disposal of waste."

The primary target of the WEEE Directive is domestic waste and is catagorised as follows:

1. Large household appliances
2. Small household appliances
3. IT and Telecoms equipment
4. Consumer equipment
5. Lighting equipment
6. Electrical Electronic tools
7. Toys, leisure and sports equipment
8. Medical services
9. Monitoring & control equipment
10. Automatic dispensers

Each of these is further broken down within the WEEE Directive to qualify the type of equipment included and excluded from the WEEE Directive . Only equipment with a voltage rating not exceeding 1000v AC and 1500v DC comes within the scope of the WEEE Directive .

The WEEE Directive considers collection, treatment and recovery of electrical waste as well as giving targets on expected recovery rates and implementation time scales.
The WEEE Directive also makes recommendations on the expectations of companies who can treat and/or recover EE waste and an important aspect of this is that producers are obliged to give as much detail as possible on the material content of equipment and any potentially dangerous substances, to enable treatment companies to comply with the directive.

Financing of non-private household waste in the WEEE Directive is also considered. The collections, treatment, recovery and/or disposal is the responsibility of producers (and potentially users) of products.