UK Authorities are reporting on companies not living up to WEEE regulations

The online business is booming. Therefore there are more and more multi-sellers retailers. This is seen as a main problem overseeing the compliance in the market. Recolight pointed out the ministers need to keep an eye on what is called ‘free-riding’.

Recolight compared the list of WEEE Registered companies next to the companies selling LED lamps trough online retailers with next day delivery. With these results they cold estimate total lamp sales by apparently non-registered producers.

Discussing Recolight’s concerns, CEO Nigel Harvey said: “WEEE could just be the tip of the iceberg: While it is very easy to check WEEE compliance, it is harder to verify electrical safety, CE, VAT, and import duty compliance. But if a company has not complied with WEEE, how certain is it that they comply with other UK requirements?

“Non-compliance is bad for legitimate businesses, and gives the non-compliant company unfair competitive advantage. So we are pleased that the OECD will be publishing a report into this problem later this year. Defra officials are aware of the report, and Recolight will be calling on ministers to close this loophole in the forthcoming review of the WEEE regulations, provisionally set for this Autumn.”

EucoLight, the European trade association for lighting WEEE compliance schemes is co-hosting a seminar in Brussels, on 13 September, to raise the profile of the problem.

Read more about the Recolight report on WEEE regulations.