Obligations around e-waste

Section 3 of the WEEE Management Regulations lists the obligations you have as a municipality regarding discarded appliances. In addition to the obligations, you also want to collect and process discarded appliances in your municipality as separately as possible and thus reduce the amount of residual waste. The OPEN Foundation knows the market. We score excellent and well above the European targets for reuse and useful applications.

As a municipality there are obligations concerning waste electrical appliances (WEEE, or e-waste). These are the legal obligations for municipalities:

Provide a place where residents can return waste electrical appliances and energy-efficient light bulbs free of charge.

Only hand in the collected e-waste to a party that has it recycled in accordance with the CENELEC (formerly WEEELABEX) standards.

By handing in e-waste to the OPEN Foundation, your municipality fully complies with the legal obligations from the European WEEE Directive and the WEEE Regulation.

Public lighting

In addition to the WEEE Regulation mentioned above: lamps and luminaires are e-waste and must be collected, disposed of and processed separately from other waste, there is also the Building Decree 2012. Chapter 4 (Separating Construction and Demolition Waste), Article 4.1 indicates that, among other things, the following must be collected separately from other waste: (i) luminaires and (j) gas discharge lamps.

The OPEN Foundation is obviously keen for municipalities to act in accordance with legal obligations. As of 1 September 2021, we aim to pay an incentive compensation for every ton of light fittings collected in bulk (10 or 40 cubic containers) by the OPEN Foundation.

This applies if a (minimum) two-year contract is entered into and all materials (fluorescent and energy-saving lamps, fittings and other e-waste) are handed in. This can be done through installation companies, whereby the fee is paid to the installation companies. Another possibility is to collect this through the municipal yard from maintenance activities and hand it over to us from the yard. In the latter case, the fee goes directly to the municipality. The LightRec Foundation is working closely with the OPEN Foundation in this project and is helping to make the incentive scheme possible. Questions? Please contact Coen Teeuw.