Amazon: Electronic Equipment

(asked on 24th June 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how much Amazon has paid in charges under the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Regulations 2013 in each of the last three years.


This question was answered on 8th July 2021

The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Regulations 2013 place certain obligations on Amazon as a producer and distributor of household electrical and electronic equipment (EEE).

As a UK-based producer Amazon pay an annual registration fee of £750 to the Environment Agency. Amazon meet their wider financial obligations as a UK based producer via membership of a Producer Compliance Scheme (PCS) approved by the Environment Agency. The amount charged to Amazon by their PCS for discharging obligations to finance their share of annual targets for collection, treatment, recycling, recovery and environmentally sound disposal of household WEEE is a commercial matter between the two businesses and is therefore not held by the Government.

Amazon also has take-back obligations under the regulations in respect of their role as a seller of equipment directly to household consumers. Amazon discharge that obligation via membership of the Distributor Takeback Scheme approved by the Secretary of State under the WEEE Regulations. In total, the DTS has raised nearly £1.8 million over the past three years. This money is used to fund Local Authority projects aimed at improving their collection infrastructure to ensure more electricals are being properly reused or recycled. For larger organisations, the fee is based on their volume of unit sales across the different categories of electrical equipment. The amount charged to individual businesses is not published.

The Government plans to consult on reforms to the WEEE Regulations later this year and will seek views on placing new responsibilities on Online Market Places.

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