Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he is taking steps to ensure the safe export of e-waste.

There are a number of legal mechanisms in place to control the export of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), and to ensure that when WEEE is exported it is managed safely. These include:

• A ban on exporting WEEE from the UK for disposal;
• A ban on exporting hazardous WEEE from the UK to countries which are not members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development;
• A requirement for those involved in the export of waste, including WEEE, to take all necessary steps to ensure the waste is managed in an environmentally sound manner throughout its shipment and during its recycling or recovery;
• A requirement for businesses to obtain approval from the Environment Agency (EA) to export whole items of WEEE or WEEE derived materials.

The Basel Convention on the transboundary movement of hazardous waste, to which the UK is a Party, agreed changes on 15th June which will further tighten international controls on the export of WEEE. The UK Government supports these changes which, from 2025, will require exporters to obtain prior consent from the Competent Authority in both the country of dispatch and destination to export all types of WEEE for recycling.

The EA regulates the export of waste in England, including WEEE. EA officers carry out pro-active and intelligence led inspections to stop waste shipments that breach regulations before they leave ports. In 2020-21, 869 containers were stopped, of which 176 were returned to a waste site as they were unsuitable for export; 27 of those containers were found to contain WEEE.

Any UK operator found to be illegally exporting waste can face a two-year jail term and an unlimited fine.