The lighting industry is changing at a very rapid rate. Conventional fluorescent tubes and light fittings are being replaced by LED lamps, and increasingly by LED integrated fittings. LED light sources are very energy efficient, and usually have much longer life than fluorescent equivalents. This change is not just happening on a fitting-by-fitting basis. Large, multi-site organisations are implementing large-scale projects to change the majority of their lighting, across all their sites.

This transformation is also having an impact on the waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) industry. Replacing a conventional light fitting with a light fitting incorporating an integrated LED light source will result in two WEEE waste streams: hazardous fluorescent lamps, and the non-hazardous fittings. The fluorescent tubes must be removed from the fittings on site, and stored in appropriate containers pending collection. The waste fluorescent tubes must be treated by an appropriately licenced recycler.

With the number of national LED roll-out projects taking place, there is an increasing need for the producers of new light fittings to provide their customers with a solution for the recycling of both the lamps, and the fittings. Typical rollout programmes include demanding customers such as
banks and retailers, and so requirements for tight collection timescales, and fully auditable and traceable documentation are commonplace. High-profile organisations such as these are increasingly implementing corporate social responsibility and environmental strategies that require WEEE to be correctly treated – as WEEE, not, as in the case of fittings, just as scrap metal.

By ensuring that WEEE is collected via a producer compliance scheme (PCS), producers and their customers can be confident of better environmental outcomes. That is because the WEEE regulations require PCSs to apply high standards of recycling, including minimum recovery targets, and to prioritise reuse over recycling. Where WEEE is collected through other routes, as scrap, no such requirements exist.

In addition, the UK government has been conducting a consultation to revise the interpretation of the WEEE regulations that could affect the lighting industry, and others. The consultation looks to revise the classification of ‘dual use’ products (those used in both businesses and homes), adopting a system widely used elsewhere in Europe. The government’s proposed change would classify ‘dual use’ products as consumer products for WEEE. This intended change ultimately means that producers of ‘dual use’ lamps will be responsible for financing a great share of recycling. If the government’s intended changes proceed, by the end of January 2015, producers may be obligated to categorise their 2014 sales using the WEEE classification of ‘dual use’ products.

Within the recast WEEE Directive, revised national targets were set at 45 per cent by 2016 and 65 per cent by 2019. In a recent survey of 780 contractors in the electrical industry, 90 per cent of respondents said that government should set higher targets for lamp recycling. In addition, 95 per cent of the stakeholders surveyed thought that all lamp producers should be required to offer free lamp recycling. In 2013, lamps accounted for three per cent of the tonnage of business EEE placed on market, but represented 25 per cent of the business WEEE collected.