Largest WEEE scheme issues warning to councils

The warning comes from REPIC – the Recycling Electrical Producers Industry Consortium – which argued that councils should only sign up to schemes which collect the amount of waste their members actually require, under forthcoming producer responsibility rules.

At the centre of the issue regarding the amount of WEEE collected, is the fact that the intention of the UK system is for schemes not to deliberately aim to under or over collect simply to make excessive profits. The rules come into full effect on July 1, in which producer compliance schemes will pick up household WEEE from designated collection facilities on behalf of their producer members, so that equipment can be recycled.

If producer compliance schemes pick up more – or less – WEEE than their members need to fulfil their recycling requirements under the WEEE Regulations, evidence of that recycling can be traded between schemes.

REPIC – the UK's largest WEEE producer compliance scheme according to new figures issued last week (see letsrecycle.com) – is claiming that some schemes may collect too much or too little equipment after July 1 and either go bust or have their registration as schemes cancelled by the government.

Concerns
REPIC chief executive Philip Morton said: “Local authorities should ensure they sign up with a scheme capable of safely collecting WEEE as closely as possible to its member obligations. If a scheme over or under commits and loses its approval, the Designated Collecting Facility (DCF) covered by it could be left high and dry.

“Before agreeing contracts, local authorities should check each scheme’s market share and find out how much WEEE they have already secured, and whether taking on their sites will push them over their limit,” he said.

REPIC, whose large membership means it will be responsible for funding more than half of the WEEE recycling needed under the new regulations, has some concerns about the possibility of schemes signing up more collection sites than they need in order. This could mean smaller schemes able to sell evidence at a premium to the larger schemes. 

Dr Morton said: “One would really need to question the motives of any PCS that over or under commits. If they over process it means their members are footing the bill, if they under process it means someone else is footing the bill. Both bring the risk of losing approval as a PCS.”

• It is understood that under the regulations, councils who did find that a producer compliance scheme which they were using ceased operations, would have options open to it. This includes the local authority arranging for the treatment of the WEEE itself and recover the costs from the National Settlement Centre.