WEE Directive

Waste Electrical and Electronics Directive

The strangely named, Waste Electrical and Electronics Directive, is comming to our shores.

The European Directive On Restriction Of Hazardous Substances will slightly increase the retail cost of your electrical white goods.

The cost is likely to increase the purchase price of an item by around 5%, but how the directive will be enforced is arguable.

Manufacturers could gain some valuable recycleable material from collections, but we feel they are more likely to avoid responsibility, rather than embrace the directive.

Much of the cost will be associated to the new tier of administration that will need to be implemented by manufacturers, the old red tape.

This is an EU directive that orders electrical goods manufacturers to bear the cost of disposals at the end of the product life.

Naturally, our speedy government, sat on the directive for ages. The EU mandarins were unimpressed and threatened to take the UK to the European courts, Blair and Co decided to act.

It may surprise you to learn that many electrical items contain many pollutions and poisons, ranging from lead to greenhouse gasses.

The WEE directive will force the correct disposal of these pollutants.