Speaking ahead of a government consultation on proposed changes to the WEEE system, due to be launched shortly, Nigel Harvey said that major changes were needed in the system.
Changes are being brought about to incorporate the terms of the Recast of the WEEE Directive, which was passed in Europe in 2012, and also address claims by producers of electronic equipment that the current arrangement does not represent the actual cost of recycling.
Speaking to letsrecycle.com, Mr Harvey said that Recolight is keen to see the trading of evidence between schemes stop in order to reduce the cost of compliance for EEE producers.
Schemes are responsible for the obligation of their producer members, which is proportionate to the amount of new equipment that they have put onto the market, and must meet the obligation by securing evidence to demonstrate that the required amount of WEEE has been recycled.
WEEE Conference
Proposed changes to the UK’s WEEE system are set to be discussed at a one-day conference in London on May 1 2013 hosted by letsrecycle.com, entitled Reshaping the WEEE Regulations. To find out more, click here.
Trading occurs where schemes have either a surplus or a deficit of evidence and is thought to be the primary cause of high compliance costs, meaning that schemes with access to more evidence than they are obliged to gather can charge an inflated rate to other schemes.
Mr Harvey said: For us, to get a fair household system what has to happen is the trading of evidence has to stop. Its very simple because trading happens when producer compliance scheme a has control of WEEE that producer compliance scheme b needs.
A natural consequence of that trade is that there is a mark up and if the scheme that has the evidence knows that the other scheme has to buy it, it results in higher prices.
The Department of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) has already revealed three of the options that are likely to be included in the consultation. These are:
- A single national producer compliance scheme;
- A central collection facility allocation system;
- Mandatory targets for each compliance scheme.
Mr Harvey said the alternatives proposed by BIS would all be an improvement on the current system.
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