Review of UK WEEE regulations

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has announced that a review of the existing regulations on waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) in the UK will be released in the coming weeks. The review will assess whether the regulations have achieved what they set out to do in 2013 and will include suggestions for improvements.

Graeme Vickery, senior policy advisor at DEFRA, stated that the UK is likely to miss the EU WEEE collection targets for the first time. However, Vickery explained that the problem was not restricted to the UK: “This is not a UK specific issue, I know it is an issue in other EU countries we are talking with.”

Following the European Union’s WEEE Directive, from 2019, overall targets for WEEE collection will jump from 45% to 65% of the weight of new products put on the market. Alternatively, the Directive allows to target 85% of WEEE arising. Internal targets have been missed in the UK in the last two years, and much work will need to be done to keep up with the targets.