Online marketplaces will soon have to report all household electricals from non-UK suppliers as part the current regulations.
If approved, the waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) regulations will extend to electrical items made overseas which are sold on UK online marketplaces.
The motion was tabled today (3 June 2025) and will need to pass through both houses of parliament before coming into force.
Nigel Harvey, CEO of lighting compliance scheme Recolight, said: “For over a decade, online marketplaces have facilitated the sale of WEEE non-compliant products on an industrial scale.
“The consequences have been very damaging for legitimate UK businesses. The sellers of non-compliant products have gained an unfair advantage because they do not pay their share of recycling costs.
“But to add insult to injury, that has in turn meant that WEEE costs to compliant businesses have been higher than needed.”
Online marketplaces will likely incur additional WEEE costs in 2026, with full costs being allocated from 2027.
The lighting industry has been particularly impacted by the exclusion of non-UK supplier from the WEEE regulations.
A survey by the UK WEEE Scheme Forum showed that 76% of LED lamps offered for sale on a major marketplace were not registered for WEEE.
Harvey added: “This is a great day for many companies in the UK lighting industry. At last, the end is in sight for this unfair competition. Recolight has pushed long and hard for this change, on behalf of our 220 members.
“The mechanism that the government has chosen to implement the change is particularly efficient: rather than requiring many tens of thousands of non-UK companies to register for WEEE, they have instead placed that obligation on the small number of online marketplaces. That makes enforcement by the UK environment agencies much more straightforward.”
I guess its kinda like what the EU did, but the UK seem to be targeting the big selling platforms rather than dumping all the problems onto the sellers which is what the EU did. I mean it does kinda make more sense at a glance what the UK are trying to do. So maybe we will finally have LED light bulbs which last longer than a week now then..