The EU Directive on the Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive 2005 (RHOS) will apply to all our businesses in the UK, Germany and Ireland.
This places responsibility on the producer and the end user to ensure that restricted substances are not used in the roll-out of our network or in our handsets.
During the year we have been carrying out due-diligence checks with our suppliers, designed to ensure compliance with this new regulation.
We have procedures to handle all hazardous waste that accumulates in our offices and networks. A number of recycling schemes operate throughout O2 to recover among other things redundant batteries, and we are proactive in recovering and reusing old mobile phones.
We comply with rules on handling and treating hazardous waste appropriately. Under EU law, products such as batteries and fluorescent tubes contain hazardous waste, and we use third-party suppliers to dispose of these properly and to recycle where possible.
The revised hazardous waste list incorporates a range of newly defined hazardous wastes including certain everyday items such as computer monitors and fluorescent tubes. As a producer we are subject to inspection by the competent authorities.
Changes to the law – for example, developments on Integrated Product Policy and the implementation of the Directive on the Restriction on Hazardous Substances (RoHS) from 2006 - will encourage reduction in the use of hazardous materials and in the creation of hazardous waste.
Our production processes neither create hazardous waste, nor use hazardous substances in significant quantities that would require the collection of meaningful statistics. The hazardous substances in common products that we use, for example fluorescent tubes and cell site batteries, are tightly managed. Any waste arising is controlled through the correct waste-disposal procedures.
