LONDON, Dec. 16 -- The U.K. government has made available a series of publications on the WEEE and RoHS Directives, including best practice case studies.

The guidance is available for free at www.envirowise.gov.uk/electronics.

Among the suggestions:

• Talk to, or join, a recycling industry consortium.
• Talk to a recycler about the requirements and costs of recycling your own product, with a view to re-design.
• Find out what happens at the end-of-life for your product.
• Establish a dialogue with distributors and retailers to establish if your own take-back scheme is possible, or what the best options are for your business.
• Look at current contracts, both for equipment used and sold, to identify any possible transferral of responsibility.
• Evaluate customer opinions about who is responsible for WEEE and see if it is possible to negotiate
• Evaluate B2B takeback obligations if selling equipment to businesses that are likely to have old stock which will need to be collected and recycled.
• Re-evaluate your business model.
• Identify any market opportunities, such as recycling, logistics.
• Consider a move from a selling to a renting business model.
• Evaluate design and re-design opportunities.

For additional information:

• U.K.'s Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), RoHS guidelines: http://www.dti.gov.uk/sustainability/weee/
• KPMG report on WEEE: www.dti.gov.uk/sustainability/weee/kpmgreport.pdf
• DTI commissioned assessment on WEEE strategies in other countries: www.dti.gov.uk/sustainability/weee/aeatreport.pdf
• DTI RoHS compliance reports: ROHS Compliance Executive Summary.pdf: www.dti.gov.uk/sustainability/weee/; ROHS Compliance Full Report.pdf: www.dti.gov.uk/sustainability/weee/
• Centre for Sustainable Design: www.cfsd.org.uk
• Sustainable Design Network: www.sustainabledesignnet.org.uk 
• EC's Integrated Product Policy:  www.europa.eu.int/comm/environment/ipp/home.htm 
• United Nations UNIDO training kit on Cleaner Production: www.unido.org/doc/9753  
• Lifecycle analysis tools: www.pre.nl
• Waste Resource and Action Programme: www.wrap.org.uk
• Intellect: www.intellectuk.org/campaigns/environment/default.asp
• Unep sustainable consumption: www.uneptie.org/pc/sustain
•  Environment Agency life cycle analysis tool: www.environment-agency.gov.uk
• Sustainable Business: www.sustainablebusiness.com
• Design Council: www.design-council.org.uk