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Nearly two million tonnes of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) is produced every year in the UK, and until recently much of it still ended up in landﬁll. In July 2007 the 2002 EU Directive onWEEE – designed to minimise the amount of hazardous waste going to landﬁll and encourage re-use and recycling – was introduced into UK law.

Since then, all producers of electrical and electronic equipment have been legally obliged to ﬁnance the safe disposal, reuse and/or recycling of their products when they reach end-of-life. They do this by joining a compliance scheme, like Recolight, which manages the legal responsibility for the producer and puts a mechanism in place for the collection and recycling of WEEE from the end user on their behalf. The regulations apply to a variety of products including IT & telecommunications equipment, electrical tools, sports equipment, medical devices and lighting equipment (lamps).

and therefore need to be dealt with in accordance with strict safety guidelines as they could cause a risk to human health and the environment if sent to landﬁll sites or otherwise not disposed of properly.

Recolight has established itself as a specialist WEEE compliance scheme for lamps. We are collecting signiﬁcant and increasing numbers of B2B GDLs via our network of commercial collection points (RecoNet), and are constantly seeking to extend this collection network, where it adds value to users or to improve our geographical cover. Ultimately we expect the commercial collection network to stabilise at 1,500 sites (or higher, as the demand requires) – and to date we have registered over 1,000. One third of these commercial collection points are open, which means businesses (and householders) may take along small quantities of end-of-life lamps and dispose of them in an environmentally sound way. However, recent changes to the WEEE Regulations include higher

End users can have easy access to Recolight’s collection points; there is a mapping tool on the Recolight website, which anyone can use to locate their nearest open commercial collection point. Alternatively, for companies that are eligible, becoming a Recolight supported collection point themselves might be the most cost effective solution.

Now that the foundations of a robust recycling mechanism are in place, the most important task is to increase the levels of awareness about the hazards of waste electrical and electronic equipment. In the lamps industry in particular, B2B end user awareness is high, but consumer awareness is still below where it should be and there needs to be greater public awareness of sustainable recycling options. Unlike televisions and computers, gas discharge lamps used at home, such as the new low energy types, can be more easily discarded with everyday household waste going to landﬁll, so raising awareness is vital to encouraging end users to separate and recycle their waste lamps.

Businesses can be proactive in ensuring their organisations rethink their waste disposal. Those paying for their recycling could save a signiﬁcant amount of money, whilst at the same time beneﬁt the environment, by sourcing better recycling solutions. Recolight recommends that organisations specify the compliance scheme within their procurement procedures, so that when buying new gas discharge lamps they know that the producer is legally registered and already conforming to theWEEE Regulations. In doing so, the management of end-of-life gas discharge lamps will be easier, whilst also improving the green credentials of the organisation.

For Recolight our priority is to ensure as many lamps as possible are collected and recycled and that no lamps go to landﬁll where they could cause risk to the environment and human health. We are committed to raising awareness of the importance of recycling and to continue to build our collection point network to provide a robust recycling scheme, meeting the needs of all businesses and consumers alike.

This year we will see the second anniversary of the waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) regulations which came into effect in the UK in July 2007. Peter Lees, Commercial Manager of not-for-proﬁt lamp recycling specialist Recolight, looks back at the progress made so far and suggests what the next steps are for improving recycling rates.