WEEE recycling is a big business today due to the rate at which electronic equipment and technology is developing.

It is estimated that in the UK alone around one million tonnes of waste electrical and electronic equipment is generated from domestic and commercial sources per year.

As electronic equipment contains precious, ferrous and non-ferrous metals as well as plastics. Manual dismantling of equipment can prove to be economically viable. Alternatively, more and more companies are operating shredders and granulators to process WEEE to increase profits and materials turnover.

At AWC Engineering Ltd. we are able to offer turnkey WEEE recycling systems, which are proven in the industry. -We would welcome the opportunity to discuss how our equipment can be integrated into your multi-machine WEEE processing lines and offer advise on how to get the most out of your existing equipment.

The WEEE Directive is a European law designed to encourage and regulate the collection, reuse, recycling and recovery of waste electrical and electronic equipment, for which it sets targets. The Directive aims to improve our environment, reduce risks to human health through the proper treatment of discarded goods.

The EU WEEE Directive started to take effect form the 2nd January 2007, and will be fully implemented by July 2007 when suppliers will have to comply with all elements of the legislation.

The primary target of the WEEE Directive is domestic waste which is catagorised as follows:

• Large household appliances
• Small household appliances
• IT and Telecoms equipment
• Consumer equipment
• Lighting equipment
• Electrical Electronic tools
• Toys, leisure and sports equipment
• Medical services
• Monitoring & control equipment
• Automatic dispensers

Each of these is further broken down within the WEEE Directive to qualify the type of equipment included and excluded from the WEEE Directive . Only equipment with a voltage rating not exceeding 1000v AC and 1500v DC comes within the scope of the WEEE Directive.

The WEEE Directive considers collection, treatment and recovery of electrical waste as well as giving targets on expected recovery rates and implementation time scales.

The WEEE Directive also makes recommendations on the expectations of companies who can treat and/or recover EE waste and an important aspect of this is that producers are obliged to give as much detail as possible on the material content of equipment and any potentially dangerous substances, to enable treatment companies to comply with the directive.

Financing of non-private household waste in the WEEE Directive is also considered. The collections, treatment, recovery and/or disposal is the responsibility of producers (and potentially users) of products.