News

Successful Members Seminar (12/03/2009)

Budget Pack members learn about proposed new producers’ responsibility Regulations and Directives at a seminar held at Budget Pack’s new offices on the 25th February.

This interactive seminar was attended by a broad cross section of budget Pack’s members from small businesses to multinational corporations. The seminar focussed on proposals for new UK Regulations and EC Directives.

Waste Batteries Regulation

This regulation will place obligations on producers, importers and distributors of batteries and electrical products containing batteries. Particular points of interest to producers are:

1. How the regulatory requirements differ for portable, industrial and automotive batteries
2. How producers will have to comply with the regulations
3. What information they will need to supply, what regulatory costs they will incur.
4. Likely regulatory costs

UK WEEE Regulations

The UK Government is proposing changes to the WEEE regulation following experience gained over the first two compliance periods. The main areas of change are:

1. Continuation of the Distributor Take Back Scheme. What level of funding should distributors provide and how this funding should be used.
2. Changes to the way producer compliance schemes will be approved and monitored.
3. New data reporting for producers to reduce the amount of data required for reporting B2B.
4. Bringing Environment Agency fees for overseas producers in line with those for UK producers.
5. New rules for AATFs to improve monitoring of recycling and increase overall recycling efficiency.

The WEEE Directive

The European Commission has reviewed the WEEE Directive and has made proposals for improving the effectiveness of this Directive. The main proposals cover:

1. Improving the consistency across Member States on the scope of the Directive
2. Setting collection targets that are consistent with the amount of electrical product produced in each member state
3. Increasing recycling efficiency targets to include product reuse
4. Harmonising producer registration across all EU Member States

The RoHS Directive

In conjunction with the review of the WEEE Directive the European Commission is proposing changes to the RoHS Directive.

1. Improving the definition of products that are within the scope of the Directive
2. Increasing the scope of the Directive to include medical and control and instrumentation products
3. Applying restrictions to more hazardous substances
4. Clarifying and extending obligations under the Directive now to include manufacturers, importers, and distributors
5. Making RoHS conformity a CE marking requirement. 

The seminar proved to be a great success with members being able to not only meet the Budget Pack team but also to interact with other members and discuss in open forum particular concerns and issues they had. This allowed ideas and solutions to concerns not only to be offered by Budget Pack but also allowed members to their share their best practice with others.

Members went away from the seminar with greater awareness of these new regulations and how they will impact in their business in the future, allowing them to start planning much earlier and be better prepared for when the Regulations come into force.

This is what our members thought about the seminar.

Kate Johnson of Fujifilm said "a very informative and interesting seminar"

“A well constructed agenda, concisely presented with the opportunity for interaction throughout” Steve Rickets Biohit Ltd

Ted Senescall of ACAL Technology Ltd commented “Many thanks for your informative presentation”.

“We are intent on complying with all of our environmental obligations. Consequently it is reassuring to have the expert knowledge and support of your Team, especially when the legislation and responsibilities are changing so significantly and rapidly, and the administrative burden is increasing continuously”. Tim Broomfield of P B Design & Developments Limited

If you missed the seminar you can download the presentation from either the Batteries or WEEE members section of the Budget Pack website.

For more information or assistance on battery and WEEE compliance, please contact Budget Pack on 0845 0942228.