WEEE Disposal for Businesses: A UK Compliance Guide

Waste electrical and electronic equipment, known as WEEE, is one of the fastest growing waste streams in the UK, and almost every business produces some of it. Old laptops, monitors, printers, fridges, kettles, lighting and power tools all count. It is also one of the streams where well-meaning small firms most often go wrong, usually by putting it in a general skip or handing it to a carrier who cannot show where it ends up.

This guide explains what counts as WEEE, who is responsible for it when it comes from a business, what the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Regulations 2013 mean in practice, how hazardous WEEE is classified and documented, and what a skip hire or house clearance firm needs to do when a customer wants electrical items taken away.

What counts as WEEE

WEEE is any equipment that needs electric current or electromagnetic fields to work, or that generates, transfers or measures them, once it becomes waste. That is a wide definition. It covers:

• Large household-type appliances such as fridges, freezers, washing machines and cookers
• IT and telecoms equipment such as computers, laptops, servers, printers, phones and monitors
• Consumer electronics such as televisions, audio equipment and cameras
• Lighting equipment, including fluorescent tubes and LED lamps
• Electrical and electronic tools, from drills to commercial kitchen equipment
• Toys, leisure and sports equipment with electrical components
• Medical devices, monitoring and control instruments and vending machines

The legal framework is the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Regulations 2013 (SI 2013/3113), which sets producer responsibility duties, collection and treatment standards and record-keeping requirements. They are enforced by the environment agencies in each nation, the Environment Agency in England, Natural Resources Wales, SEPA in Scotland and the NIEA in Northern Ireland, with other bodies responsible for producer compliance.

Household WEEE and business WEEE

The Regulations draw a line between WEEE that comes from private households and WEEE that comes from businesses, schools, charities and other non-household users. It is called non-household WEEE, or business-to-business (B2B) WEEE. The line decides who pays for collection and treatment, so it matters for both the producer and the customer.

Household WEEE can be returned by householders free of charge at local authority household waste recycling centres, and through retailer take-back schemes. Retailers who sell electrical goods must either offer take-back in store, or join the Distributor Takeback Scheme, which funds local authority collection facilities.

Business WEEE works differently. When a business buys new equipment as a replacement for old equipment of an equivalent type, the producer who supplies the new equipment is responsible for financing the collection, treatment and recovery of the old item. In other cases, the business that owns the equipment is responsible for arranging and paying for its disposal. Contracts for new equipment should say who handles the old items, so ask suppliers to confirm this in writing at the time of purchase.

Classification and EWC codes

Whether WEEE is hazardous or not depends on what is in the item. The List of Wastes has several codes you will see regularly, and our guide to EWC codes explains how the chapters work:

• 20 01 21* for fluorescent tubes and other mercury-containing waste
• 20 01 23* for discarded equipment containing chlorofluorocarbons, which in practice means fridges and freezers
• 20 01 35* for other discarded electrical and electronic equipment containing hazardous components, which includes many monitors and screens
• 20 01 36 for discarded equipment not containing hazardous components
• 16 02 13* and 16 02 14 for equipment from businesses and industrial sources, hazardous and non-hazardous respectively

The asterisk marks a hazardous entry. Hazardous WEEE needs a consignment note rather than a waste transfer note, and it must not be mixed with non-hazardous waste. Our guide to waste transfer notes versus consignment notes sets out what each document requires. For ordinary non-hazardous WEEE, a standard waste transfer note is the right document.

If a load contains a mixture, such as a van of office clearance containing monitors, a fridge and a box of cables, document each stream on the correct note. Do not describe a mixed load as one code unless every item genuinely falls under it. When you are unsure how to classify a particular item, ask the treatment site, which will know how it classifies that equipment.

Treatment and where it should go

WEEE must go to an authorised treatment facility. For household WEEE, the regulations refer to approved authorised treatment facilities (AATFs), which are permitted sites that have been approved to issue evidence of treatment, and to designated collection facilities. For business WEEE, treatment still has to take place at a permitted facility, and the equipment should not be broken up or stripped of components by anyone who is not authorised to do it.

Some practical points for small firms:

• Ask for the permit. A treatment site should be able to show you its environmental permit or equivalent authorisation, and the EA public register lets you confirm it. Do not rely on a verbal assurance.
• Do not strip items for scrap. Removing copper, compressors or circuit boards from WEEE can release hazardous substances, can breach the treatment requirements and may cross into scrap metal dealing, which needs its own licence. Our article on scrap metal dealer licensing explains the line.
• Protect fridges and freezers. Cooling equipment contains refrigerant gases and oils that must be recovered by competent operators. A fridge with a broken pipe is a pollution problem as well as a legal one.
• Handle lamps carefully. Fluorescent tubes contain mercury, and broken tubes in a skip contaminate the rest of the load.
• Keep batteries separate. Lithium batteries in laptops, tools and e-cigarettes have caused fires at waste sites. Where batteries can be removed safely, they should be handled under the batteries rules. Our article on batteries waste regulations explains these.

Data security

Computers, phones, servers and printers often hold personal or confidential data. A business that throws out a laptop without wiping it remains responsible under data protection law for what happens to the information on it. Before handing over IT equipment, businesses should wipe or securely destroy storage devices, or choose a treatment provider that offers a certified data destruction service and issues a certificate. The Information Commissioner's Office publishes guidance on keeping personal data secure.

If you collect IT equipment from customers, include a line in your terms that data wiping is the customer's responsibility unless you have agreed in writing to carry it out. It protects you if a customer later claims you were responsible for data on a drive.

If you are collecting WEEE

If you collect WEEE from businesses or households as part of a clearance, skip or van service, the usual waste carrier rules apply. You need to be registered as a waste carrier for the work you do, and hazardous WEEE needs the right registration and consignment notes. Our guide to who needs a waste carrier licence and the one on upper and lower tier registration cover what applies to you.

Your transfer paperwork for WEEE should record:

• A precise description, for example "discarded computer monitors, 20 items" rather than just "electricals"
• The correct EWC code and whether it is hazardous
• The quantity, which can be a weight or an item count where that is how the treatment site records it
• Your carrier registration number and the receiving site's permit or authorisation details

For regular collections of the same type of WEEE from the same customer, a season ticket can work for non-hazardous streams. Hazardous WEEE has its own rules for repeat movements.

Keep the receiving site's weighbridge ticket or receipt with your transfer note. If a producer, a customer or a regulator asks where a batch of monitors went, the ticket and the note together answer the question. Our article on how long to keep waste transfer records sets out the retention periods.

Advising customers

Your customers will often ask what they should do with old electrical equipment. A short, accurate answer helps and protects you from taking the blame if something goes wrong.

• Householders: use the council recycling centre or the retailer take-back route first, as both are free for household WEEE. Anything still working can be donated for reuse.
• Small businesses: ask the supplier of the replacement item whether they will take the old one back. If not, use a registered carrier and a permitted treatment site, and keep the paperwork.
• Landlords and agents: after a tenancy ends, electrical items left behind still need correct disposal. Leaving them for a general skip is not acceptable.
• Offices and shops: a clear-out of old IT equipment should be planned as a data destruction job as well as a waste job.

If you also do house clearances, our guide to house clearance waste compliance sets out how to handle mixed loads that include electricals, furniture and general waste.