By Ministerial Agreement, The Ministry of Environment, Water and Ecological Transition, issued the Instructive for the Applications of the Extended Responsibility in the Integral Residues Management of electric and Electronic Appliances of Domestic Origin.

The object of the present instructive is to establish the requirements, procedures, and specifications to the extended responsibility of the producer (REP), applied to the electric and electronic appliances (EEA) of domestic use.

Every individual or company responsible for the first placing on the national market of Electric and Electronical Appliances must comply with the present instructive.

(EEA): Every device that needs electric current or electromagnetic fields to fulfill its function and the devices needed to generate, transmit, and measure said currents.

Subjects: (Producer of EEA´s)

  • Manufacturer, assembler, importer, and other figures that introduce the devices  to the national market EEA´s.

Co-responsible:

  • Marketers and distributers.

Remain excluded of the scope of the instructive: lead acid batteries, traction batteries, transformers, discharge lamps, luminaires, electric vehicles, and electric professional apparatus that contain radioactive sources or any other source used in medicine, industry, investigation, or any other application.

Producer responsibilities

  1. Obtain the Administrative Environmental Authorization corresponding to the registry of hazardous and or special waste generator.
  2. Develop and present the Comprehensive Management Plan (onwards "CMP") of Electric and Electronical Appliances Residue (onwards "EEAR").
  3. Implement and finance the approved CMP of EEAR.
  4. Carry out the integral management phases of the EEAR with dully authorized environmental managers.
  5. Make the withdrawal and or transport of every EEAR recollected.
  6. Meet collection goals of EEAR (0.5% of the average of all EEA´s imported or first placed on the market by the producer in the past 3 years; and 3% in the case of out-of-use cellphones). These percentages apply to each obligor.
  7. Annually report, within the first 10 days of march, the annual progress report of implementation of CMP of EEAR to the Ministry of Environment.
  8. Include in the labeling of the products the symbol stated in the second ANNEX of the instructive.

The marketer and or distributor

  1. Register al movement of EEAR and report semi-annually its status to the producer.
  2. Act as co-responsible of the compliance of goals of recollection stablished previously (*10) Failure to comply with the provisions of the instructive will give rise to the respective actions in accordance with the provisions of the Environmental Act.
  3. Obtain the pertinent Environmental Authorization.
  4. Report to the authority. Of any irregularity that may arise during the process of reception and delivery of EEAR´s.
  5. Informe within 1 day of the fact, to the producer of any event of emergency, incident, or accident to the EEAR that has or may have caused environmental harm.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.