When the first Waste from Electric and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE) Directive of 2003 was transposed into national law within the European Union in 2005, who would ever have thought that common legislation could end up being adopted in so many different ways in Member states?

Despite various attempts at harmonisation, at least with the new approach starting with the 2012 Directive, the situation remains very diverse. Producers are subject to WEEE, battery and packaging legislation in 30 countries, including the EU-27 plus Switzerland, Norway and the United Kingdom, and must comply with their respective local obligations.

This is the reason why some of the leading Producer Responsibility Organisations in Europe decided to come together to form an organisation in 2013 to support producers of electrical and electronic equipment and batteries, not only in their respective national markets, but all over the world.

And that was the origin of weee Europe. Today we have 19 member systems in 18 countries, and we also work with 79 partners all over the continent to meet our clients’ compliance needs.

Ecotic joined weee Europe as a founding member, as it was convinced from the outset of the benefits of this organisation for both Ecotic and for its members. Andreu Vilà is also a member of our Board of Directors, and his valuable contributions help to shape the future of the organisation. We are very proud that the systems which are members and partners of weee Europe today account for more than 50% of the total amount of WEEE and batteries collected in the 30 countries involved.

This is even more important given that the amount of WEEE generated is constantly increasing. WEEE is the fastest growing waste stream in Europe, increasing at a rate of around 3-5% per year. The amount of WEEE is forecast to reach 54.7 million tonnes worldwide in 2021. This is more than the total weight of the Great Wall of China, the heaviest construction ever made by humanity in the entire
world.

Compliance consultancy

When we work with a new client, we start with an analysis of their organisational structure and company’s status as a producer. We also examine the range of products and advise on which families or groups of products fall within the scope of application of the various legal provisions.

As a result, clients receive an overview of all the obligations and costs in each country in which they are present. Based on this analysis, we work together with the client to identify the European countries where we need to prepare a registration, or adopt an alternative approach.

Contract coordination

In the second phase, we prepare all the necessary contracts for our clients and organise their registration in the Producer Responsibility
Organisations and in the appropriate national registers. In addition, we provide them with Authorised Representatives for all countries where they do not have a subsidiary but nevertheless need to be registered.

Product classification and market launch reports

In addition to guiding producers towards compliance in 30 countries, our major achievement is the core platform we have developed to enable simple reporting in a single format across all countries and Producer Responsibility Organisations.

And we do this without any language barriers and without having to think about reporting frequency and deadlines: customers simply upload their data centrally to our portal, and we take care of the rest. This means that proper reporting can take just a few minutes all over Europe.

Packaging Compliance

Since its inception, at weee Europe we have supported clients all over the world with their compliance needs in the area of WEEE and battery management. To round off our portfolio of services, we have expanded our activities, and we are now also in a position to meet their needs in the field of packaging compliance.

During these years, we have supported hundreds of satisfied clients at weee Europe, involving all types of product areas, and we provide comprehensive coverage for the product portfolio of small producers, medium-sized companies and large multinational groups with worldrenowned brands. Whatever your needs may be, our team in Munich will be happy to help and look forward to getting in touch with you.

More information at www.weee-europe.com.