take-e-way customers report to us about letters from Amazon regarding the requirements of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) because they sell electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) in Germany. Such a letter with the subject “Action needed - EPR Requirement for EEE” dated 3 August 2022 has been received by take-e-way as an example.
The introduction of the letter begins as follows: “You are receiving this email message because you sell electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) in Germany and are affected by the requirements of the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) rules. [...] Therefore, we need to collect your registration number(s) (WEEE Reg. No. DE), validate and check whether your offerings have a valid branded appliance type registration in the EAR Foundation’s register of manufacturers.”
Please note that “manufacturer” is not to be equated with “factory owner”. A manufacturer is the person who first places a product subject to the EPR requirements on the market in Germany. For instance, you are a manufacturer if you offer/introduce electrical appliances that do not originate in Germany for the first time on the German market on a commercial basis or offer them directly to German end consumers via online sales and are not resident or based in Germany.
If you are already registered, you do not need to do anything other than provide Amazon with some information, e.g. whether you are a manufacturer or a reseller, etc. Amazon will inform you when you can submit the registration number(s) (WEEE Reg. No. DE) on Amazon’s collection portal.
If you cannot prove to Amazon that you comply with the EPR requirements, Amazon will suspend your non-compliant listings under WEEE on 1 January 2023. “This may also affect parts of your WEEE offerings for which there is no valid branded appliance type registration in the EAR foundation’s manufacturer register. Please note that Amazon may start enforcing non-compliant listings before the deadline. [...] If you do not start your registration with the EAR foundation by the end of October 2022, you may not have enough time to obtain the registration number(s) (WEEE Reg. No. DE) and registration for branded equipment before the deadline, as the process can take between 7 and 8 weeks,” Amazon advises in its letter.
Important: Irrespective of the obligation to confirm to Amazon that the EPR registrations (WEEE registration, battery registration and packaging registration) are complied with, the corresponding legal requirements already apply at this stage.
The take-e-way consultancy team will be pleased to assist you. Please call +49/40/750687-0 or send an e-mail to beratung@take-e-way.de for any questions you may have on the Electrical and Electronic Equipment Act and the EPR rules and we will help you with the registration.
