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What WEEE can do for you

Posted on 29 Jul 2005 at 15:37

Paul Trotter explains why UK businesses should view new recycling legislation as an opportunity, not a burden

The WEEE (Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment) Directive, the recycling framework set by the EU, brings fundamental changes to the way businesses deal with IT equipment, but it's usually accompanied by a bag full of mixed messages from the government. Ultimately, it will mean you can no longer dump old products, bringing added responsibility to retailers, distributors and end users to dispose of goods in an environmentally friendly way.

The tendency for many businesses is to view the requirements as a headache. They bring added responsibility to IT departments that are already working at full throttle, and an extra cost to suppliers working on paper-thin margins.

However, a growing sector of the IT services market claims the legal obligations brought about by WEEE will provide a welcome nudge to businesses, convincing them that now is the time to improve their asset-management strategies. Your business, they claim, can reap the rewards of a watertight recovery policy, whereby you reuse or resell the three-year-old PCs currently destined for the skip.

The directive affects all forms of IT equipment, but those advising businesses to make more of their redundant goods pick out PCs and laptops for special attention. There are no concrete figures on the number of systems thrown away by UK companies, but one specialist in the reuse of office equipment estimates that up to two million working Pentium-based PCs are dumped in landfill sites every year. Another firm claims 98 per cent of the potential clients it comes into contact with are unaware their throwaway goods have any value, despite the fact that the vast majority of those systems are nowhere near the end of their life and can continue to be used elsewhere by other businesses, charities or schools. These companies say it's time for a change in attitude.

What is it?

All sorts of methods have been used to explain the extent of the manufacturing sector's impact on the environment, not least the creation of the WEEE Man. Built by Canon and the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce, it's made from seven tonnes of defunct computer and electrical equipment and is said to represent the average amount of technology used by a single person in their lifetime. At the current rate, 90 per cent of each person's electrical goods will end up in a landfill or be incinerated, instead of being reused or recycled.

WEEE is designed to tackle this problem by putting the onus on suppliers to legally dispose of products they sell when they're no longer needed by customers.

The EU has been working on the directive for over five years, and the final plans were first published in February 2003. According to the initial guidelines, the responsibilities were due to be in place this summer, but most countries are yet to implement them.

Earlier this year, the DTI said it had encountered 'major practical difficulties' in the preparation of the planned implementation of WEEE this August, revealing that most of the directive wouldn't be written into the statute books until January 2006.

However, a DTI spokesperson told us immediately after the announcement that, rather than committing to the January date, officials were 'hopeful' it would meet the deadline. Industry experts believe it won't come into place until later next year, with the balance of opinion suggesting the full UK implementation will be put back until spring 2006.

Despite the delays, business buyers are advised to make clear provisions for their new responsibilities. No longer should your company store old equipment in cupboards, no longer can PCs be passed about on an ad-hoc basis, and no longer should buildings and facilities staff be held responsible for old computers. If the PCs in your business are going to be passed on to anyone outside the company - whether they be recyclers or charities - you must make sure the data has been properly removed by a trusted IT support technician. Many companies will rely on in-house staff, but there's a growing number of third-party firms with the technical resources to take that particular burden on.