These Regulations amend the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Regulations 2013 (S.I.2013/3113) (the “2013 WEEE Regulations”). The 2013 WEEE Regulations implement Directive 2012/19/EU on waste electrical and electronic equipment (“the WEEE Directive”). 

These Regulations amend the 2013 WEEE Regulations to: 

- implement the open scope principle to bring all electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) into the scope of the Directive unless exempt or excluded and retain the current UK WEEE system of 14 categories

- make membership by all producer compliance schemes (PCSs) of the PCS Balancing System (PBS) mandatory and for the Secretary of State to approve such a PBS. This will ensure that all requests made under regulation 34 will be dealt with by a PCS and the cost shared on a market share basis amongst all PCSs in the United Kingdom; 

- ensure that where a charging scheme of an appropriate authority (the Environment Agency, the Natural Resources Body for Wales and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA)) supersedes the annual producer charge laid down in the 2013 WEEE Regulations, the charge payable by each scheme member will go to the relevant appropriate authority according to the location of its registered office, or where the scheme member does not have a registered office, its principal place of business

- substitute for the references to the Northern Ireland Department of the Environment a reference to the Northern Ireland Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, as the former department ceased to exist in 2016; and 

- provide that reports submitted by approved authorised treatment facilities (AATFs) must be submitted in the format published by the appropriate authority or online. This amendment ensures that when the reporting format is updated by the appropriate authority, AATFs will be obligated to adhere to the new format.