Compliance · Plane 1

Waste

Law 7/2022 · RD 110/2015

Waste regulation does not stop at requiring retired IT assets to be managed correctly: it requires the organisation to be able to prove it. EoL360 documents, asset by asset, every decision and every treatment, from collection to case-file closure.

What the regulation requires

Three obligations that must be read together:

A hierarchy that starts with prevention. Law 7/2022 orders waste management by priority: prevention, preparation for reuse, recycling, other forms of recovery and, lastly, disposal. Prevention expressly includes the reuse of products and extending their useful life.
The obligation to apply it and to evidence it. The waste producer must ensure the adequate treatment of its waste in accordance with that hierarchy, and that obligation must be evidenced with documentation. Its liability does not end on handover to a third party, but only once the complete treatment is duly documented.
A second use, whenever possible. Professional users of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) must route used equipment to a second use whenever possible. Handing it over as WEEE is reserved for equipment that turns out to be unusable, for example for lack of essential components or structural damage that is not readily repairable.

In practice:

sending the whole equipment fleet to WEEE without assessing it does not comply with that obligation, and leaves the company unable to evidence that it applied the waste hierarchy the law requires.

When a device becomes waste

A retired device is not waste merely because it leaves the site. While pending technical assessment it is used EEE. Only once it is determined that it cannot have a second use and the organisation discards it does it become WEEE, and the organisation acquires the status of producer of that waste. That is why EoL360 splits the operation into two phases: pre-waste, with assessment and a second life, and WEEE fraction, treated by an authorised handler.

Used EEE
Pre-waste · assessment and second life
WEEE fraction · authorised handler

Key articles

Law 7/2022 · art. 2.z

Definition of prevention: includes reducing the amount of waste «through the reuse of products or extending the useful life of products».

Law 7/2022 · art. 8.1

Waste hierarchy, in this order of priority: a) prevention, b) preparation for reuse, c) recycling, d) other recovery, including energy recovery, and e) disposal.

Law 7/2022 · art. 20.1

The producer must ensure the adequate treatment of its waste «in accordance with the principles set out in articles 7 and 8». «Those obligations must be evidenced with documentation.»

Law 7/2022 · art. 20.2

Liability ends «once the complete treatment is duly documented».

RD 110/2015 · art. 13.1

Professional users, «whenever possible, shall route used equipment to a second use».

RD 110/2015 · art. 13.2

If the equipment «turns out to be unusable», users «must hand it over as WEEE».

What EoL360 documents

Obligation	Document
Applying the hierarchy and prioritising a second use	Technical assessment report: fitness of every asset, destination and reasoning.
Evidencing the complete treatment	WEEE handler report: final treatment of the non-fit fraction, issued by the authorised handler.
Tracing the assets	Collection record, delivery note and chain of custody: identified inventory and every handover signed.

Sanction regime

See fines

Law 7/2022 classifies breaching the art. 20 obligations regarding non-hazardous waste as a grave infringement (art. 108.3.t), and as very grave where the waste is hazardous (art. 108.2.r). Breaching the obligation to provide or keep the required documentation is also grave (art. 108.3.e). The fines (art. 109) are:

	Non-hazardous	Hazardous
Minor	up to €2,000	up to €20,000
Grave	€2,001 – €100,000	€20,001 – €600,000
Very grave	€100,001 – €3,500,000	€600,001 – €3,500,000

Evidence the hierarchy from the very first retired asset.

We show you how EoL360 would document the organisation’s next equipment refresh process.

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