Local councils plan changes to WEEE arrangements

The research, undertaken on behalf of waste electronics and electrical equipment (WEEE) recycling compliance scheme ERP, discovered that only 15% of local authorities are committed to not changing the PCS they have contracted to collect waste electrical equipment from their designated collection facilities (DCF) in the near future.

While 38% said they were unlikely to change their arrangements in the next few months, 32% revealed that they planned to review, but not necessarily change, their PCS contract, and 3% would definitely change, with 12% undecided as of yet.

Scott Butler, the general manager of ERP UK, the PCS holding the most WEEE collection contracts with councils (see letsrecycle.com story), said: “The WEEE Directive is a complex piece of legislation, which is trying to bring about a significant change in the industry and in society.

“While it's very gratifying to see that the Directive is clearly working, it had a difficult birth in many aspects, and it's understandable that some local authorities should want to review their arrangements.”

Volumes

The survey also revealed that the majority (54%) of local councils have seen only a small increase in the amount of WEEE arriving at their DCFs since the introduction of the WEEE Directive last July, and just 14% reported a significant increase.

One in five councils has seen unchanged volumes, while 9% have seen a fall.

Despite this the UK is well above the European Union target of collecting four kilograms of WEEE per head of population, per year, and the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform last week called for efforts to be made to reach a 10 kilogram target by the end of the year (see letsrecycle.com story).

With a national campaign planned for this summer to increase consumer awareness of WEEE recycling, the survey revealed that 96% of producers and 100% of local councils believe that more should be done by the government to encourage householders to recycle their unwanted electrical items.

At the same time, 61% of producers and 59% of local authorities called for a legal obligation to be introduced to ensure consumers recycle or reuse WEEE.

Commenting on that result, Mr Butler said: “Making WEEE recycling compulsory for householders would be a very bold move, and I'm not yet convinced that it would have the desired effect.”

IPR

Significant support was also indicated for individual producer responsibility for WEEE recycling, with 62% of producers and 78% of councils backing the environmental benefits of an IPR system.

Speaking last week at the Recycling and Waste Forum 2008, near Birmingham, Tony Pedrotti, the director of sustainable development at BERR, revealed that IPR was still under consideration.

“There's a view that the UK somehow ditched IPR, but there's nothing to stop companies from doing it if they want,” he said. “No other European state has IPR, we're not against it but the question is how do you do it, from both the cost point of view and the environmental point of view?”

“We are looking at IPR and we shouldn't forget that a lot of companies already have eco-design built in,” he added. “I wish it was an easy answer, but we're not ducking it.”