WEEE requirements in France

Registration timescale

Manufacturers and importers of electrical and electronic products in France must register with the Environment Agency ADEME by 30 November 2006. The WEEE registration process began on 1 September and failure to register can prevent products being sold in France.

Registration agency

Agence de l'Environnement et de la Maitrise de l'Energie (ADEME)

Collection and recycling obligations for B2B WEEE

Under the French Decree on the Prevention and Management of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) which came into force on August 13th 2005, the financing of collection and recycling of any waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) arising from equipment bought before August 13th 2005 is the responsibility of the business end-user. This is regardless of whether the equipment is being replaced by a new piece of equipment from the producer of electrical and electronic equipment. Equipment purchased before August 13th 2005 is referred to as Historic WEEE.

Under the Decree, the producer is required to finance the collection, treatment, recycling and recovery of any new electrical and electronic equipment that is bought after August 13th 2005, when that new equipment eventually becomes waste. This is referred to as new WEEE.

Reports on the quantities put on the market, collected and recycled in 2007 must be submitted to ADEME by 28 February 2008.

Similar to the situation in Germany, providing compliant WEEE collection and recycling arrangements in France is considerably easier for business products compared to household products. A financial guarantee is not required and an individual system for business products does not require approval. Companies can further reduce their compliance costs by inserting a clause into sales terms and conditions which requires the last user of the product to pay to send it to the company's appointed recycler.

Importers are required to register as the WEEE producer because they put products on the market for the first time in EU Member States. In France, for example, registration as a WEEE producer is only possible if you have a company registration number (SIREN) in France. This is creating a growing issue for foreign manufacturers whose products may be imported and sold by several distributors in each Member State. The overall cost and administration for each distributor to register as a WEEE producer and to provide WEEE collection and recycling arrangements can be disproportionately high.

Foreign manufacturers can lessen the burden on their distributors in France and other Member States by providing WEEE collection, recycling and reporting arrangements on their behalf. Several manufacturers based in the US, Canada, Israel and Norway have used ENVIRON's WEEE web systems to take advantage of this opportunity.

Regulations in English Regulations in French

For further information, please contact Aidan Turnbull
Head of WEEE, RoHS & EcoDesign on +44 (0)1225 748420