Legislation

The Environmental Protection Act establishes the 'duty of care' in relation to the handling of all waste, including IT waste. This legislative measure lays down that the person or persons responsible for waste arising from a business must ensure that disposal takes place in an environmentally sound and ethical manner. Typically this includes ensuring that waste equipment is passed only to an Authorised Waste Carrier and handled only by Authorised Waste Management facilities. Both individuals and company representatives can face serious legal consequences should they ignore this obligation.

The Data Protection Act is the main piece of legislation that governs the protection of personal data in the UK. The Act was updated in 1998 to include specific provision for electronic data and set out eight principles of data protection. Of major note should be the legal responsibility for the Data Controller within an organisation to adhere to these principles - including the secure removal of all electronic data from equipment entering the public domain. Whilst the tangible penalties can be quantified and are often fierce, it is often the litigation that results from negligent behaviour relating to data security that causes the most damage to the reputation of a business and this is much more difficult to measure.

Essentially replacing the older "Special Waste" system, the new legislation has two major impacts on businesses with redundant IT equipment.

Firstly, it classifies CRT monitors as hazardous material for the first time in UK law along with other hazardous IT equipment such as UPS batteries.

Secondly, it requires any site that produces more than 200Kgs of such waste product per annum to register with the Environment Agency as a producer of Hazardous Waste. Thereafter the movement and treatment of that material has to be carried out in accordance with strict guidelines.

It is illegal to collect, treat or dispose of hazardous waste any way other than in accordance with the regulations and is a breach of law by both the producer and the disposal agent if this is ignored.

Adopted into UK law in early 2007, the WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) Directive is an EU wide directive designed to make manufacturers and importers (the 'producer') responsible for the cost of disposal of redundant equipment. The Directive sets targets for recovery and recycling across ten categories of products (Category 3 is IT and Telecoms), increasing over the first few years of implementation.

It is worth noting that any returns scheme operated by WEEE manufacturers is unlikely to have any provision for data removal, asset management services (such as asset listing) or any potential remarketing return.

BTR UK operates a WEEE compliance scheme (WEEE Compliance UK) in association with Datec Technologies. We are in the fortunate position of understanding both sides of the WEEE challenge and would be happy to discuss the impact that this commonly spoken about (but rarely fully understood) piece of legislation will have on your business.