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3 Sep 2012 | Changes brought by the new Waste Act and the EU's WEEE Directive

Spring and summer have seen a number of changes made to the legislation concerning the responsibilities of producers for electrical and electronic equipment and portable batteries and accumulators. The new Waste Act (646/2011) came into effect on 1 May 2012 but regulations regarding producer responsibility will not be applied until May 2013 due to the transitional provisions of the Act. Regulations regarding areas of producer responsibility are also currently undergoing reform by the Ministry of the Environment. The aim is to have the new regulations in place by May at the latest.

In addition, the new EU directive on waste electrical and electronic equipment ('WEEE Directive') was finally completed after a number of years of planning. The new directive came into force on 13 August 2012 and will be transposed into Finnish law by 14 February 2014. The new directive (2012/19/EU) replaced the old WEEE Directive (2002/96/EC).

Key changes for producers under the new Waste Act:

1. The new Waste Act gives producers the primary right to organise waste treatment
2. Regulation of the establishment and solvency of producer organisations will become stricter
3. Electrical equipment distributors will see their collection obligations grow
4. The producer must keep the distributors informed about producer responsibilities
5. New provisions to control free riding
   

Notable changes in the new WEEE Directive

The new directive provides, among other things, increasingly ambitious collection targets. From 2016, 45% of electrical and electronic equipment released onto the market must be collected; from 2019, the target is 65% of electrical and electronic equipment released onto the market or, alternatively, 85% of WEEE produced each year. The current collection target will remain in place until the end of 2015, being at least 4 kilos of household WEEE per resident.

The existing 10 WEEE categories will be kept until 14 August 2018, after which electrical and electronic equipment will be categorised according to only 6 categories. The new equipment categories are: 1) refrigerators and radiators, 2) screens and monitors, 3) lamps, 4) big appliances (anything with external dimensions greater than 50 cm), 5) small appliances (external dimensions smaller than 50 cm), and 6) small IT and telecommunications devices (under 50 cm).

Through the new directive, distributors' WEEE collection duties will become stricter than before. Under the new Waste Act, distributors' collection duties are only limited to the collection of old equipment in return for new, but according to the new directive distributors will have to accept collection of small-scale WEEE even if consumers do not buy new devices. The stricter distributor's collection duty will affect those stores that have an electrical and electronic equipment sales area of at least 400 m2.

WEEE Directive 2012/19/EU

5 Jun 2012 | Elker Producer Newsletter 2/2012

Content:

• The amounts put on the market and collected WEEE have increased in 2011
• Elker and producer organisations moved to a new address in May
• In 2011 the collection rate for portable batteries and accumulators was 36 %
• Changes brought about the new waste legislation from the producer's view
• EE equipment reporting: definition of business and consumer products

Read ProducerNewsletter 2/2012 here.

24 Nov 2009 | Elker Producer Newsletter 4/2009

Content:

• Producer organization memberships are growing
  
• ICT is auditing reporting from year 2008
  
• Use producer responsibility in your company's marketing

Read Producer Newsletter 4/2009 here. 

17 Sep 2007 | Elker membership keeps growing

The number of members in Elker Group has continued to grow after the summer. Already over 850 electrical and electronic equipment producers take care of their producer responsibility through Elker Group.

There are 566 members in SELT Association. In addition there are 24 affiliated companies on behalf of which the actual members take care of the producer responsibility. Already 97 companies have joined SELT Association this year.

ICT Producer Co-operative has got 44 new members this year. At the moment there are 244 member companies in ICT. Member companies of ICT Producer Co-operative have registered 16 affiliated companies on behalf of which they take care of the WEEE requirements.

FLIP Association is a compliance scheme for lamp producers. Companies producing lamps on the Finnish market transfer their producer responsibility to FLIP. Transferring of the producer responsibility does not require membership. At the moment the Association has five member companies and four companies that have made the transfer agreement.

Note! In case your company is a member of Elker Group's producer organisation and an affiliated company's products are included in company's consumer product reports you can notify Elker Oy about this and the affiliated companies will be listed in the membership register for no additional payment. 

1 Jun 2007 | Elker Group's bulletin 1/2007

Read Elker Group's bulletin 1/2007 here (pdf | 2.1 MB). The bulletin is mostly in Finnish but there is also an English section on pages 14-16.

1 Dec 2006 | Elker Group's bulletin 2/2006

Read Elker Group's bulletin 2/2006 here (pdf | 1.4 MB). The bulletin is mostly in Finnish but there is also an English section on pages 13-14.