§ Lord Dixonasked Her Majesty's Government:
Why they plan to classify inkjet cartridges for printers as consumables rather than electrical waste under the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive. [HL4139]
§ Lord Sainsbury of TurvilleThe Government have always considered printer cartridges as consumables. The WEEE Directive only applies to whole products placed on the market and not to individual components, sub-assemblies or consumables. Computer memory chips, camera film, CD-ROMS, floppy disks or even batteries are not covered as individual items. They need only be recycled at the end of their life when still retained within the whole device and it is the producer of the original whole product who is responsible, not the manufacturer of each part. However printer cartridges are described, it is clear that they too fall into this cadre of items and are not separately covered.