News

End of classical light bulbs brings more obligations for producers

From 1 September, 75 WATT light bulbs stopped being placed on the Czech market. The prohibition, which arises from a regulation of the European Commission to launch 100 WATT bulbs on the market, has been valid since last year. Thus, from now on, only a clearance sale of warehouse stock is possible. Next year, the prohibition will affect 60 WATT light bulbs, and in 2012, it will affect 40 WATT bulbs. The transition to economic bulbs has a number of consequences for electro-equipment producers and importers due to the fact that the bulbs contain mercury and are thus subject to electro-waste legislation.

Classical light bulbs are not subject to the electro-waste legislation as they do not contain mercury. In relation to their successive suppression, Czech sellers will increasingly sell the luminaries which will be liable to the electro-waste legislation. They will have to adapt to the obligations and legal regime of this equipment, in particular to the fact that, if they sell electro-equipment not coming from producers who are duly registered with the Ministry of the Environment and who fulfil their electro-waste obligations, they will automatically appear in the position of the so-called producers who themselves are obliged to perform the relevant obligations.

Based on the Act on Waste, electro-equipment producers and importers have a number of electro-waste obligations. They must collect their used electro-equipment from final consumers, process it ecologically, inform the consumer about their role in this process, carry out registration with the Ministry of the Environment, record the amount of the electro-equipment placed on the market and report it to the Ministry of the Environment, etc.

They can fulfil the above-mentioned obligations themselves or through the so-called collective system. They must pay a recycling fee only to the collective system which has a licence for it granted from the Ministry of the Environment. If it be to the contrary, these are not tax-deductable expenses, and assertion of a fee paid in the wrong collective system can have an impact on the tax obligations of the company (paying off the income tax, sanctions).

A penalty of CZK 50 million is impending for a breach of the obligations.