Support with producer responsibility
Weee Nederland
Support with producer responsibility
Weee Nederland was established in 2013 to support manufacturers with their manufacturing responsibilities. The social enterprise does this by collecting, sorting and recycling waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE for short) together with its partner businesses. Many municipalities, retailers and thrift shops make use of the collection and sorting concepts of Weee Nederland. At Weee Nederland and its partners, over 300 employees work each day to actively contribute to a circular world.
In the EU, all producers and importers of electrical appliances – anything that contains a battery or has an electrical cord attached – must pay a surcharge that allows the sector to recycle the product once it’s discarded. To this end, producers have to register their business and products in each country where they are active and periodically report marketed products. Each year, over 180 million kilos of e-waste is collected in the Netherlands alone. The Netherlands and the rest of the EU strive to collect 65%of all e-waste. This percentage currently lies at less than 50%; smaller appliances in particular are still being discarded instead of recycled. Weee Nederland is one of the larger collection and recycling facilities for e-waste products in the Netherlands.
One of the business’s main tasks is to take some of the legislative requirements for producers and importers of electrical and electronic appliances out of their hands. This starts with informing businesses of their obligations as many companies are not aware of this legislation. Then the required registration is taken care of in every country where needed. Once the registration is complete, the periodical reports of the sold number of appliances follow.
Each country is different
Although this concerns an EU directive, each country within the EU interprets the directive differently. Both the registration and reporting procedure can differ; sending stacks of paper instead of online registration is sometimes the standard rather than the exception. Moreover, the reporting frequency varies from monthly to annual reports, and the reported categories can differ, and so forth. Weee Nederland has in-house knowledge of every country in the EU to support businesses with the registration and reporting procedure. They can also authorise Weee Nederland to carry out these procedures on their behalf.
Weee Nederland is the only company to offer such a service in the Netherlands and is one of the few providers in Europe. That is why many businesses outside the EU also know where to find Weee Nederland to streamline the compliance process for their deliveries within the EU.