Example of a lithium battery warning label used by Amazon in the UK late 2013    

The Packaging Waste Regulations work on the principle of Shared Producer Responsibility, encouraging producers to take responsibility for their environmental impact. The Regulations require obligated producers to pay a proportion of the cost of the recovery and recycling of their packaging. defra Packaging & Packaging Waste Information

The REACH regulations have already come into force and are now in the registration phases. The REACH regulations are a monster even by the EU’s standard and are many hundreds of pages long. They apply directly to manufacturers and users of chemicals who must register by specific target dates from 2011 to 2018 if their […]

The batteries directive came into force in September 2008, but it will be another 18 months before recycling targets come into force and the regulation really bites. Mercury and cadmium usage are being limited, resulting in the banning of NiCd batteries. Producers are to be responsible for financing the collection, treatment and recycling of waste […]

EuP is a new regulation that will force designers of products to reduce the energy usage of a product over its entire life cycle, from raw material extraction from the ground all the away to disposal / recycling. Of all the environmental regulations EuP is the one that is going to have a massive impact […]

Any business that manufactures or distributes household or non-household electrical products within the European Union needs to comply with the WEEE regulations. They are one of a series of new ‘producer responsibility’ directives that require producers of new equipment to pay for the recycling and/or safe treatment and disposal of the products they put on […]

The RoHS directive came into force in 2006 and has had a large impact on the electronics industry. Most categories of electronic products are required to meet the requirements of RoHS, with the primary requirement being the use of lead free components, circuit boards and solder. The widely feared reliability issues have not come to […]

Most categories of electrical products must bear a CE mark if you intend to sell them in the Europe. A CE mark and accompanying Declaration of Conformity is a contract between a manufacturer (producer) and the state that the product complies with the relevant regulations, such as the Low Voltage Directive (LVD), Machinery Directive and […]