Sending mailorder electrical goods to EU countries

Are you doing this legally?

[jgar]

In the UK, if you sell mailorder electrical goods online (inludes anything with a circuitboard, even toys), you need to be WEEE-registered in the UK.

Apparently, if you then send any of your orders to any other EU country, you need to be WEEE-registered in that country too, many of which make it extremely difficult for you to register, effectively making cross-border EU mailorder electrical goods impossible.

It seems many online shops in Europe are therefore operating illegally.

Anyone managed to get round this?

[jwolthuis]

I'm in the US, so this UK law is new to me (and probably doesn't even apply to me). It appears that retailers simply need to offer in-store collection of waste that they sell. For an eTailer, that means accepting waste dropped off at your shipping location. Eventually (10 years from now), the eTailer would be required to properly recycle/dispose of all of the items they collect (possibly none).

The registration requirement appears to be offered from "compliance providers"; companies that read the law, and offer "hand-holding" for a fee.

I'd be wary of anyone who promises compliance with a law (via "registering" or "joining") in exchange for money.

[enigma1]

If sending the same items from countries outside EU isn't restricted, maybe that's a workaround and honestly doesn't surprise me. Cross-border EU commerce is more of a joke than anything else.