WHAT IS A WEEE

Refrigerators and air conditioners, small and large appliances, televisions and computers, audio / photo / video equipment e  energy saving lamps. All tools, constantly present in every activity of our daily life, which to function  they depend on electric currents or electromagnetic fields.

At the end of their life cycle they become waste classified with the code  WEEE (Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment).

The volume of WEEE is growing at a European level at a rate three times higher than that of any other type of waste. To put a stop to the constant increase of such waste and ensure its suitable treatment, the European Union has issued specific Directives aimed at "preventing the production of WEEE  and their subsequent reuse, recycling and other forms of recovery, in order to reduce the volume of waste to be disposed of ".
These Directives were implemented in Italy with the  Legislative Decree 151 of 2005  And  subsequently  with the  Legislative Decree n. 49 of 14 March 2014, which aims to improve, from an environmental point of view, the intervention of subjects who play an active role in the life cycle of electrical and electronic products: from  producers  to the  consumers , passing through the actors of the  distribution chain , up to the recycling operators.
There  European directive  on waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) affirms the principle of producer responsibility for end-of-life products, a principle sanctioned for the first time at European level in the automotive sector and now also extended to the electrical and electronic equipment sector.

The primary objective of the legislation is the  reduction of the quantity of waste  to be sent for disposal and their dangerousness, promoting the reuse, recycling and other forms of recovery of WEEE and expressly prohibiting the placing on the market of new equipment containing substances that are hazardous to humans and the environment such as lead, mercury , cadmium, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyls (pbb) or polybrominated diphenyl ether (pbde).