WEEE Regulations 2018 amendments (Open scope)

Guidance to the UK Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Regulations 2018 amendments (Open scope)

INTRODUCTION/BACKGROUND:

The UK WEEE Regulations are based on the EU WEEE Directive and are implemented by national Governments in all EU member states. The WEEE Directive originally came into force in August 2005 and was implemented in the UK with effect from July 2007. The objective is to minimise land-filling of waste electrical and electronic equipment (the fastest growing category of waste in the EU) by requiring producers to finance the collection and recycling/re-use of such equipment at end of life.

An updated version of the EU Directive that came into force in 2012, which was implemented in the UK through the revised UK 2013 WEEE Regulations (SI2013 no 3113), effective from 1st January 2014.

In many respects the direct obligations on lighting manufacturers remained unchanged, where there are changes in the Regulations many of them will not impact directly on manufacturers but on their PCS’s instead.

In 2018, the EU directive made some amendments to the 2012 EU directive, which was implemented in the UK through the Amendment document (SI2018 no 1214), which came into effect from the 1st January 2019.

This amendment has been known as “Open Scope” and has introduced a legis-lation to make all electrical items in scope of the regulations (some small ex-ception). We list below the main changes that we believe will be of interest to Members and will keep this updated as more information becomes available e.g. in the form of updated Guidance from BEIS or the Environment Agency.

Timing and Scope:

The Environment Agency have issued revised guidance regarding scope in November 2018, which advises the following in respect of lighting products:

The UK is keeping the current 14 EEE categories and from 2019, although fitting into one of the 14 categories will no longer be used as a determiner for whether an electrical item is in scope or not, electrical products will still have to be placed in the category of closest relevance for reporting purposes.

All Luminaires are now in scope, irrespective of light source, and are to be reported in Category 5 except for the weight of any incorporated lamps, including replaceable LED modules, which are to be reported in Category 13.

Gas Discharge and LED Lamps, including replaceable LED modules are in scope of the Regulations, whether sold loose or incorporated in new household or non-household luminaires and are to be reported in Category 13. Please note though that only lamp products incorporating hazardous substances will be classified as hazardous waste i.e. not all products in Category 13.

Filament Lamps remain out of scope of the WEEE Regulations.

We will update this guidance as more information becomes available.

If you would like a face to face update, either Lumicom or LIA would be happy to oblige. Please contact

Kirstin Shortt on 07423 201406 (kirstin@lumicom.co.uk) or
Peter Hunt of LIA on 01952 290905 (PeterH@thelia.org.uk).