Approved Treatment Facilities

Any business that wishes to undertake treatment, recycling and recovery of WEEE must be authorised by SEPA.  This means you will need a waste management licence (or registered exemption), and must then treat WEEE to the standards set out in your permit conditions.

An operator of an authorised treatment facility (ATF) can apply to SEPA to be approved under the UK WEEE Regulations.  Approved Authorised Treatment Facilities (AATFs) are then able to issue evidence of WEEE treatment and recovery.  This evidence is required by Producer Compliance Schemes to offset their members' producer obligations under the UK WEEE Regulations and is traded via the WEEE Settlement Centre external link.

AATFs have several responsibilities under the Regulations which they must comply with.  These can be read about in part 8 and schedule 8 of the UK Regulations external link.  Chapter 9 of the Government Guidance external link document will provide additional advice for treatment facilities and exporters on how to comply with the regulations, and chapters 10, 11 and 12 provide guidance on re-use of WEEE, evidence of compliance, and the WEEE Settlement Centre respectively, all of which will compliment the information in chapter 9.

Under the 2009 Amendment Regulations external link AATFsnow have the responsibility of meeting the recovery and recycling targets laid out in Schedule 8, Part 2, para 12.

Approved Exporters

Any WEEE that is exported for treatment and recovery overseas, and has had evidence issued against it, must be exported by an Approved Exporter (AE).  Approved Exporters are able to issue evidence of whole items of WEEE that has been exported for re-use overseas.  In order to apply to operate as an Approved Exporter you must already be a licensed treatment facility; the approval process is similar to that described above for AATFs.

AEs also have responsibilities under the Regulations which can be found in part 8 and schedule 8.  The relevant chapters of the Government Guidance document highlighted above also apply to AEs. 

Transfrontier Shipment of Waste

Any waste that is exported overseas for recovery must comply with EC Regulation 1013/2006 external link on shipments of waste and the Transfrontier Shipment of Waste Regulations 2007 external link.

For further information on Transfrontier Shipment of Waste please click here or contact a member of the Produce Compliance & Waste Shipment Unit.

The forms required for application for approval and the required data reporting can be found on our Forms page.

A list of all registered AATFs and AEs can be found on the WEEE Public Register.

SEPA Enforcement Position in Relation to Independent Auditor's Reports – 5 December 2008

SEPA's Enforcement Position document can be found here pdf link (499k).