Are You Legally Obliged to Opt for Eco-friendly Computer Recycling?

What are the legal obligations for recycling computers? How do you know that you are going the right way, disposing of your computers in intended and designated methods? What happens if you violate the pertinent rules and regulations? Many business owners in the UK do not know the answers of these questions. Whether you are a business owner or an employee, if you want to keep off legal issues and troubles, you need to know what are the rules and regulations regarding safe computer recycling and disposal are. Here is a brief overview of pertinent UK laws.

The act, as the phrase implies, was passed in 1995 in order to ensure safe computer disposal practices across the UK and other European countries. It is your organization’s duty of care to take all viable measures to safeguard the environment.
As per the EA 1995:

• All used computer parts are categorized as waste
• CRTs are categorized as Hazardous Waste
• You need to check and ensure whether your used computer parts are disposed of in the correct method

It is the Duty of Care of all the organizations in the UK to check and ensure that used computer parts are dispatched to authorized carriers, stored and disposed of in correct way etc. If the EPA 1990 is violated, anybody concerned would be fined and imprisoned in cases.

The DPA 1998 mandates that all the information of a company must be destroyed or taken back up of once the storage media becomes supererogatory. It is the duty of care of the people inside an organization, to wipe the data off or to take back-up of the same much before the computer parts are destroyed or disposed of. Data relating to customers and employees should not be released in an unauthorized way. Non-abidance of DPA 1998 can result in heavy fines and other penalties. This is why data back-up and recovery is utmost important before computer recycling.

The law was redesigned and renamed on July 16th, 2005 and was enforced in England, Northern Ireland and Wales. It is an accumulation and amendment of previous laws such as ‘Special Waste Regime’ etc. As per this relatively new law HWD 2005, Cathode Ray Tubes, fluorescent lighting, televisions and old vehicles fall under the hazardous materials category.

WEEE Directives for computer recycling must be followed by industrial waste producers. These directives clearly define the disposal methods for different hazardous elements such as bromine compounds, cadmium, lead, mercury and arsenic. The directive became fully effective in the UK in 2007. The main agenda is anything that requires electrical current to flow through must be recycled in a correct way. Any organization that disposes of 15 or more CRT monitors per annum must follow the guidelines. 65% of IT equipments must be recycled, as per the directives.

The 2002 born law has brought in certain restrictions on wastes that can be disposed of in landfill areas. These standards are referred as Waste Acceptance Criteria and came in effect July 2005 onwards.

If your organization violates any of these regulations when it comes to computer disposal, it’s you who would be accused of as a business owner. If you are an employee of a company, it’s your duty of care to make your employer and coworkers aware of the pertinent rules and regulations.

Together we can build a better planet tomorrow!