General Laws and Regulations, EU-legislation
If you manufacture, distribute, or sell electrical and electronic equipment, batteries, and/or packaging, both EU and national legislation require you to contribute to ensuring that these items are properly disposed of and treated.
In summary, all producers are obligated to:
- Register their producer responsibility and report their sold products to the country’s environmental agency one or more times per year.
- Provide information within one year of releasing a product to the market about its components, materials, and the substances it contains to those who professionally handle waste and others who can reuse such products.
- Accept electrical equipment provided after August 12, 2005.
- Accept electrical equipment (and batteries in certain countries) that has become waste if it is returned to the producer in connection with the sale of new products of equivalent quantity and function.
- Achieve recycling targets according to the regulation on producer responsibility for electrical equipment, batteries, and packaging.
- Promote reuse when appropriate.
- Use economic or other incentives to encourage the separation and collection of electronic waste, batteries, and packaging from other waste.
- Properly label products.
- Design products to facilitate recycling and reuse.
- Inform holders of electronic waste, batteries, and packaging about their obligation to separate and manage them separately from other waste.
- For electrical equipment containing batteries, the user manual should specify the type of battery and how it can be removed.
- Collected waste should be transported, pre-treated, reused, recycled, energy-recovered, or otherwise handled in an environmentally acceptable manner. Producers should also provide information on their website about how they contribute to achieving recycling goals.
- Inform users about how to delete locally stored personal information in electrical equipment and how to factory reset the equipment.
- Implement internal controls to ensure the quality of data submitted in reporting to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Reporting
Annually, companies are responsible for submitting one or more reports to the environmental agencies in each country they sell their products, detailing the products they have placed on the market (POM). A producer can arrange an agreement with a producer responsibility organization (PRO) or an agent to handle reporting to the environmental authority. These organizations are also responsible for waste collection nationwide. If you do not have an agreement with a PRO or agent, you must report the quantity of electronic waste (batteries in certain countries) and packaging released onto the market, provide your own collection system, report the collected amount, and the treated amount of waste from the previous year.
Recipo has the authority to act as a PRO and agent. We have our own collection system and ensure that you will fully meet your responsibilities with minimal effort for your company.
Note that these are the general rules within the EU regarding producer responsibility. If you’d like more information beyond what we’ve provided on our website or want to read further about country-specific details regarding the laws, you can visit the specific site for your country.
