The legal obligation

The legislation stipulates that each manufacturer that ‘brings an electro-appliance onto the Belgian market’ is also in charge of the collection and processing of the discarded appliances.

As a distributor or end-seller, when a customer purchases a new product, you are obliged to take back the similar discarded product that the customer is discarding, free of charge. In addition, you must also inform your customers about the processing of discarded appliances and about the contributions for the processing. Recupel offers free information material which you can order on this website.

The Recupel contribution

The Recupel contribution is the amount added to the price of a new electric/electronic appliance. We use the revenues from these contributions to coordinate and organise the collection, sorting, processing and recycling of waste in Belgium.

All of the appliances for which a Recupel contribution is charged are listed in the appliance list and are divided into 6 main categories. Within these categories, there is a division between ‘household’ and ‘professional’.

For the household appliances, an ‘all-in' contribution applies. The charge appears separately on the invoice or the purchase receipt as 'Recupel contribution'. This contribution covers the costs for collection and processing as well as for Recupel’s operations and communication (reporting, monitoring companies, …).

For your information: for all professional electro-appliances, there is an ‘administrative contribution’ when the manufacturer or importer puts the product on the market. This contribution covers our costs for administration and reporting (but not for collection and processing).

The difference between professional and household appliances is not always evident. Read more about it here.

Become a collection point

To arrange the dismissal of old electro-appliances and bulbs, every merchant of electr(on)ic materials can become a Recupel collection point. In that case, we will place a box pallet (1m wide ; 1.2m deep ; 1.7m high) at your disposal to assemble your old electro-appliances. When this pallet is full, you can make a transport request. Thereafter, we will empty your pallet. You can only become a collection point if you meet a number of conditions.

Are you interested? Register now as a collection point.

After receiving your request, Recupel will send you an email to confirm your affiliation as a collection point. After the treatment of your request, you will receive a username and a password. These will allow you to make your transport requests online.

Reimbursement

The Environmental policy agreement concerning waste has imposed new tasks on distribution with regard to taking back and acceptance. Recupel is aware of the fact that making room for temporary storage of discarded appliances requires extra effort of the distributors.

To support this effort, we award financial compensation to distributors that:

• are registered as a collection point with Recupel;
• have a sufficient number of appliances collected;
• and have signed a distribution contract.