EU WEEE Directive

The European Union (EU) Directive on WEEE (waste from electrical and electronic equipment) is intended to protect the quality of the environment and human health through the prudent use of natural resources and the adoption of waste management strategies that focus on recycling and reuse. Since August 13, 2005, EU Member States’ WEEE laws have been enacted. Under these laws, producers of most electrical equipment are responsible for their products at the end of their useful lives. Producer responsibility includes meeting labeling requirements, providing information to end-users and treatment facilities, ensuring the availability of collection infrastructure, submitting sales and recovery data, and financing WEEE costs.

For commercial products, when mutually agreed upon, the laws allow Kodak to transfer this producer responsibility to its distributors or customers. This is accomplished through contractual arrangements with the distributor or customer.

Kodak, like other electronic companies, is working with design teams, suppliers, and other partners to implement end-of-life strategies for our products. Kodak already has a highly successful One-Time-Use Camera return and recycling program established worldwide. We are extending our knowledge to help establish return and recycling systems for other Kodak products with the initial emphasis in Europe. Our new worldwide environmental goals include an initiative to further improve our planning for the life cycle thinking of all our products.