For the purposes of this program, the manufacturer of a covered electronic product sold in or into Washington state may include an entity that:
- Has legal ownership of the brand, brand name, or cobrand of covered electronic product.
- Imports a covered electronic product branded by a manufacturer that has no physical presence in the United States of America.
- Sells at retail a covered electronic product acquired from an importer and chooses to register in place of the importer as the manufacturer of that product.
In order for a manufacturer's brands of covered electronic products to be sold or offered for sale in or into Washington state, the manufacturer's name and brand names must be listed on the Manufacturer Registration List as "in compliance" or "pending" status. To be listed as "in compliance" or "pending" a manufacturer must:
- Register annually with us.
- Pay an annual administrative fee (see below).
- Participate in a covered electronic product recycling plan (see below).
As of Jan. 1, 2007, covered electronic products sold or offered for sale in or into Washington must bear a label with the manufacturer's brand. The brand is a name or logo identifying an electronic product in the consumer marketplace and attributing the electronic product to a manufacturer. The label must be permanently affixed and readily visible. "White box" or unlabeled products are not legal for sale.
The Standard Plan for Recycling Covered Electronic Products in Washington State was submitted by the Washington Materials Management & Financing Authority on Sept. 1, 2023, for the required 5-year update.
Manufacturers of electronic products sold in or into the state of Washington must participate in a recycling plan. This includes manufacturers of desktop and portable or laptop computers, computer monitors and televisions. There are two recycling plan options:
- Independent plan — If certain criteria are met, a manufacturer or a group of manufacturers may opt out of the Standard Plan and operate an Independent Plan for the collection, transportation and recycling of electronic products in Washington.If you wish to submit a recycling plan to us, please use the Covered Electronic Product Recycling Plan Template.
We assess an annual administrative fee to cover administrative costs for implementing the Electronic Product Recycling Program. This fee is separate from any fees that may be assessed by an E-Cycle WA electronics recycling plan approved by us.
We may use any combination of the following data to establish the administrative fee:
- Generally available market research data;
- Covered electronic product covered electronic product unit sales data supplied by manufacturers for brands they manufacture or sell; and
- Covered electronic product unit sales data supplied by retailers for brands they sell.
The administrative fee will be distributed among manufacturers on a sliding scale based on tiers that are representative of annual sales of covered electronic products in or into Washington state. We will publish the preliminary tier schedule on this web site by June 1 of each calendar year.
Tier reassignment request
Manufacturers will have until July 1 to submit a request for tier reassignment for that year if they believe they have been assigned to the wrong tier. To request a tier reassignment, a manufacturer must do one of the following:
- Submit or update their on-line manufacturer registration form and provide the number of CEP units sold in the prior calendar year in or into Washington; or
- Send to Ecology, in writing, the number of covered electronic product units sold in the prior calendar year in or into Washington; or
- Contact Christine Haun at 360-407-6107.
If covered electronic product unit sales data is provided, we will exempt this data from public disclosure in accordance with RCW 42.56.270(13). To protect information as proprietary, contact Christine Haun at 360-407-6107 for further instructions.
Final tier schedule
By Aug. 1 of each year, we will publish the final tier schedule. The final tier schedule will reflect our evaluation of all available data including tier reassignment requests.
