A new era for corporate responsibilities in equipment manufacture and service.

Many users of laboratory equipment may be unaware of the new European regulations, the Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment (WEEE) Directive.

Broadly speaking, under these new regulations, producers of certain electrical and electronic equipment are to be held financially responsible for the collection, recovery, reuse and environmentally sound disposal of their equipment, once it has come to the end of its useful life.

The simple aim of this new set of regulations is to change current thinking and behaviour about how electrical and electronic equipment is designed and made; for more thought to be put into the reuse and recycling of this equipment.

In effect “the polluter pays”!

This directive covers all electronic and electrical equipment, domestic as well as commercial. From your refrigerator and home computer to your laboratory centrifuge or electronic pipettor, the directive will apply equally unless you have specifically agreed with the manufacturer to dispose or recycle the item yourself.

One could argue that in an age when we are encouraged to use and dispose of equipment that 20 years ago would have been repaired if it had broken, serviced on a regular basis to ensure longevity and generally looked after.

Think of your domestic televisions for example; when was the last time you, or anyone you knew for that matter, called in “the television repair man”. In this disposable age, we have discarded perfectly repairable equipment because we perceive that it is easier and cheaper to throw it away and replace rather than repair and reuse. We may consider ourselves to be environmentally friendly by going to the bottle bank, using different bins for our domestic garbage but when we take that broken DVD player to the dump or throw out those broken pipettes from our laboratories, we are committing them in almost all cases to landfill and in many cases unnecessarily.

In some countries this new directive has already come into force. In Eire they enabled the directive in August 2005 and in Denmark January 2006. Here in the UK we have delayed enabling this directive for a short while but you can be sure that it is coming, and soon.

As users, purchasers of laboratory equipment you should be asking questions of your equipment manufacturers to ensure that they are geared up to comply with this directive and that they intend to comply with it with respect to their responsibilities.

As the world’s leading manufacturer of electronic pipettes, Biohit, a Finnish company from area of the world known for its environmentally strong stance, has long been geared up and ready to accept its responsibilities for the recovery, reuse and proper disposal of its products once they have reached the end of their useful life. Biohit has carefully looked at this problem from several angles.

Their latest electronic pipettes have been designed to have a long life, to be easy and cost effective to maintain and repair and to be made of materials that have a minimal impact on the environment. All of their new pipettors have the approved logo on the packaging making you aware that it complies with the new WEEE directive and that once the pipette reaches the end of its long and useful life, you can return them to Biohit to be recycled, reused or disposed of.

Here in the UK, Biohit has long had the philosophy of repair, reuse, recycle when it comes to pipettes. Biohit’s service company, Pipette Doctor, has long been at the forefront of keeping pipettes in service, repairing them when they would have otherwise been condemned to landfill long ago.

Pipette Doctor prides itself on being able to economically repair over 98% of the broken pipettes you may have in your lab today. We go to extraordinary lengths to repair a pipette, even after other service companies have put them beyond economical repair, and our UKAS accredited calibration laboratory ensures you that you are receiving the very highest quality of service.

So, if you have broken pipettes sitting in the drawers of your laboratory call Pipette Doctor. Repairing and reusing is often the most cost effective option with repairs of electronic pipettes being less than 15% of their new cost, manual pipettes for less than 20% of their new cost. All repairs carry a full 12 month warranty on spares and workmanship.

Special Offer*: Please quote SS230206 on your order to qualify for a 20% discount on all labour charges.

Call 0845 601 2021 to arrange for the collection of your broken pipettes, free of charge, by our courier followed by a no obligation quotation within 24 hours for their repair

Repair – Reactivate – Reuse

* Valid until 31st March 2006