Green IT Toolkit

How will green IT laws impact your business?

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Green IT WEEE

Steve Russell ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 26 Aug 2005 13:30 BST

Discarded electronic devices constitute the fastest growing waste stream in the UK and Europe. This has spawned a raft of legislation — aimed at manufacturers, waste professionals and end users — designed to tackle this burgeoning problem.

Perhaps the best known of the measures drafted by the EU to control the e-waste problem, the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive, has caused a lot of disquiet in the business community.

The main impact of the directive, which comes into force from June 2006, is to force manufacturers, retailers and importers of electronic equipment to be responsible for its eventual disposal.

Businesses and other end-users of technology will still have a responsibility for the disposal costs of historical waste and with the directive scheduled for review in 2008 there are suggestions that there might be further responsibilities for businesses in the future.

Although there is a lot of emphasis being placed on WEEE, there are other pieces of legislation surrounding the disposal of IT kit that are equally important. Some have crept up on both the private and the public sector — perhaps overshadowed by the emphasis that has been placed on legislation including WEEE and the Restriction of Hazardous Substances (ROHS) directive.

Each piece of legislation constitutes part of a larger jigsaw of measures governing electronic waste disposal and it is important that businesses understand the full picture.

Most notable has been the recent introduction of the Hazardous Waste Regulations, which replace the older Special Waste system and incorporate the European Waste Catalogue (EWC). The EWC, in existence since 1993 and having undergone a number of revisions, essentially categorises products and materials as hazardous or non-hazardous.

Introduced on 16 July this year the regulations, crucially, define a range of new products as hazardous that previously were not; the CRTs used in both computer monitors and televisions are a key addition.

Previously sent to landfill without any level of control, CRTs — with their leaded glass screens — are fundamentally hazardous. The risks they pose when...

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