WEEE comes into force

Under the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive, all manufacturers and importers of such equipment will be required to join an approved compliance scheme by 15 March 2007 and from 1 July 2007 will become responsible for the cost of collection, treatment and recycling of all such waste generated in the UK. B2B Compliance – an initiative from trade association Gambica – intends to help companies comply with WEEE, and believes that many companies have left their decision to prepare for WEEE very late. Industry experts such as Envirowise and TWI have been saying for years that companies need to think how they are going to take their products apart to recover the electronics as well as how they are going to assemble them. We published one particularly ingenious solution to the problem in the February 2005 edition of Eureka - “Polymer memories activate for quick release. ” There is presently a substantial trade in shipping old electronics to the Far East and to Africa, but even in such countries, there are beginning to be concerns about pollution arising from the recycling operations. The B2B Compliance Scheme, whose director is Peter Lawson, currently has more than 130 members. For more information see B2B Compliance