Materials

New guidance for assessing and classifying EEE and WEEE

New guidance for assessing and classifying EEE and WEEE

The Environment Agency (EA) and the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS) have today (23 February), released new guidance on assessing and reporting business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) and waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE).

Last year, central government announced that it was to make amendments to its transposition of the European Commission’s (EC) recast WEEE Directive, after identifying that its transposition was ‘at variance’ with the commission’s interpretation.

Specifically, the UK’s transposition stated that the determining factors of whether WEEE is B2B or B2C includes both nature and quantity. However, the EC published a frequently asked questions document in April 2014 removing the aspect of quantity when determining B2B or B2C WEEE and stating that any EEE that can be used by both private households and businesses should be classed as B2C.

It reads: ‘[E]lectrical and electronic equipment which due to its nature can be assumed to be used by both private households and users other than private households (professional users)… should be registered and reported as household equipment and its waste should be considered WEEE from private households.’

The EC specified that this category could include personal computers and telephones that are used both by private householders and in commercial/industrial contexts, or standard photovoltaic panels operating at a voltage or having a power consumption or generating capacity inside the range available in private households.

Following an information consultation on amending the definition in the UK guidance, BIS and the EA have now issued guidance on how EEE producers and WEEE producer compliance schemes (PCSs), approved authorised treatment facilities (AATFs) and approved exporters (AEs) should report the categories of WEEE they receive during a compliance year.

Guidance details

Central government outlines that the following ‘general principles’ should be followed when assessing B2C or B2B categories:

Step 1

Assess the product’s design, specification and function to decide whether the product is specifically designed for household or non-household use and report products designed for both household and non-household use (also known as dual use) as B2C.

Step 2

Assess the design attributes that could show if a product is for non-household use (i.e. construction and material specification and power supply and voltage). This should ‘only consider the product’s normal intended use’.

However, central government advises that ‘in the exceptional circumstance that private household consumers may buy a product specifically designed for non-household use, classify based on ‘reasonably foreseeable consumer behaviour’. For example, if a private householder purchases a coffee machine designed and intended for commercial use, it would be an exceptional circumstance (i.e. not consumer behaviour that is reasonably foreseeable) and thus be classed as B2B.

Step 3

Consider factors such as the distribution channel, sales contracts and guarantees to help support the classification.

For example, if a product is only supplied through distribution channels available to non-households this could support a decision to classify the product as B2B. However, there must also be evidence to demonstrate that the product has been designed specifically for B2B use to warrant this classification.

The guidance warns that a product cannot be split between B2C and B2B.

WEEE treatment operators

The document goes on to outline that when WEEE treatment operators receive WEEE that could be either B2C or B2B, they must:

  • classify all WEEE collected via local authority designated collection facilities (DCFs) as B2C; or
  • for WEEE collected via other routes, decide with the PCS providing the WEEE how to classify it. This should establish:
  1. whether the WEEE has come from a business end user;
  2. whether the physical attributes of the WEEE suggest it is B2B
  3. if there are property ownership markings to indicate the WEEE is from a non-household user;
  4. if the WEEE was capable of being used in non-households and/or private households.

PCSs and AATF operators do not need to do further assessment if they are satisfied the WEEE is correctly classified and there are no ‘obvious errors’.

Category specific guidance and examples

Central government has also provided a list of the different categories of EEE/WEEE, and examples of each category, to help further clarify how the products should be reported.

They are as follows:

Category 1: Large household appliances

Examples of B2B products could include large capacity catering and laundry equipment designed specifically for the commercial sector.

Category 2: Small household appliances

Examples of B2B products could include industrial sewing machines, ‘conveyor belt’ toasters, and trouser presses that are designed to be affixed to walls.

Category 3: IT and telecommunications equipment

Examples of B2B products could include IT equipment with bespoke connectors for use in non-household environments, and commercial data servers and storage systems.

Category 4: Consumer equipment

Examples of B2B products could include broadcast cameras and commercial projection systems.

Category 5: Lighting equipment

B2C luminaires aren’t currently covered by the WEEE Regulations so dual-use luminaires are out of scope until 2019. An example of a dual-use luminaire is a downlight designed to take a GU10 or MR16 lamp.

Category 6: Electrical and electronic tools

Examples of B2B products could include tools that are for continued daily usage and those powered by electricity sources other than 240v (aside from battery-operated tools).

Category 7: Toys, leisure and sports equipment

Examples of B2B products could include leisure and sports equipment designed for ‘continued high volume use’.

Category 8: Medical devices

Examples of B2B products could include machines designed for use only in medical facilities, such as dialysis machines (which are leased rather than bought by patients).

Category 9: Monitoring and control instruments

Equipment used in business applications that do not differ in design and specification from equipment used by households should be classified as B2C. This could include smoke detectors and thermostats.

Category 10: Automatic dispensers

Government suggests that this category is ‘normally commercial equipment’, but examples of B2C automatic dispensers could include those used for pet and fish food.

Category 11: Display screen equipment

Examples of B2B products could include display screen equipment that is designed to work off a central signal distribution system instead of individual aerials (e.g. hotel TVs), and that which has specific input connections designed for business applications.

Category 12: Cooling appliances

Government said that cooling equipment, such as fans, are ‘generally straightforward to classify’ due to their design.

Category 13: Gas discharge lamps and LED light sources

As the ‘majority of lamps’ are designed and capable of dual use, government recommends that they should be classified as B2C. However, examples of B2B products could include floodlights for stadiums and lamps used in cinema projectors.

Category 14: photovoltaic panels (PV)

The guidance outlines that all PV panels should be classified as B2C as ‘there is no difference in the design, size or specification of the individual panels used by private households and non householders’.

A spokesperson for BIS commented: "The guidance published today on gov.uk has been developed by BIS and the Environment Agency in partnership with industry and is intended to assist producers of electrical equipment to correctly classify their products as either household or non-household items under the 2013 WEEE Regulations.  It follows a government commitment made last October to ensure UK guidance reflected that published by the European Commission on so-called “dual use” equipment."

Read the full classification guidance, or find out more about the WEEE Regulations.