WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) and Diabetes Consumables

[Steeev]

After a bit of help here please. I have a diabetes pump that contains a rechargeable battery (WEEE). I also have a consumable cartridge that is used for insulin. This has a circuit board with one very small chip on it. other than that it's plastic. The cartridge cannot work without the pump. The infusion needle is separate and not part of this system.

So the question is - is the empty, unused insulin cartridge WEEE or can it be disposed of as general waste?

Thanks

 

[pkost]

Re: WEEE and diabetes consumables

EEE is defined as:

equipment which is dependent on electric currents or electromagnetic
fields in order to work properly

I suspect that the cartridge won't function without the chip, therefore it should be considered EEE.

I cannot see any exemption from the directive, except maybe from Aug 2018, when if it is "infective" at the end of it's life article 2(4)(g) provides an exclusion....I doubt a cartridge would be infective, but you will be in a better position to answer that

 

[Steeev]

Re: WEEE and diabetes consumables

Thanks for the quick reply pkost - what I suspected.

Is there a boundary where something becomes WEEE though i.e. a circuit board used as an earth plane only? Or is it more cut and dried that if it contains a PCB its WEEE?

 

[tyker]

If you're in the UK and the products will be put into your household waste, you probably have no obligations under WEEE. See chapter 7 of: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa...egulations-2013-government-guidance-notes.pdf
Medical equipment that becomes infective before its end of life is excluded from the scope of WEEE. I don't know if your equipment falls into that category.

 

[pkost]

Re: WEEE and diabetes consumables

I'm afraid I can't answer that level of detail!