Electrolink sets 31 October price deadline for WEEE evidence

The scheme is currently offering evidence of WEEE recycling at prices ranging from £180 per tonne through to more than £2,000 per tonne for different categories of electrical goods – averaging at about £280 per tonne.

Electrolink is one of more than 30 compliance schemes helping electronics manufacturers and importers meet their recycling obligations under the WEEE Regulations since July 2007.

Under the regulations, electronics producers must fund an amount of recycling related to the tonnage of new products they place on the market each year.

Surplus

Part of the Hertfordshire-based Wastepack Group, Electrolink has built up a surplus of recycling evidence for WEEE because it has agreed collection contracts with 245 of the 1,000 official civic amenity and similar sites where householders can hand in their old electrical appliances for recycling. However, its members make up less than one percent of the household electronics market.

Other schemes that do not have enough collection sites – known as Designated Collection Facilities (DCFs) – on their networks are understood to have to meet members' recycling obligations by purchasing or swapping evidence with schemes with a surplus.

Electrolink has set a deadline of October 31, after which it has said it will increase its prices to cover interest costs. The scheme said its pre-increase charges had been on offer since March 2007.

Guidance

Concerning the “severe price increases” threatened for those schemes not contracting before the end of October, Electrolink claimed: “The guidance to the regulations recognises that cash flow is a relevant factor in the trading process. It is unreasonable for a scheme to starve the UK recycling infrastructure of cash, especially if it is collecting advance fees from its members.”

Electrolink also wants other schemes to contract for their 2008 evidence requirements as part of their 2007 compliance year procurement.

Nevertheless, the producer compliance scheme run by the Wastepack Group, has insisted it is “acting within the letter and the spirit of the Regulations” by securing a quarter of the UK collection network for WEEE – despite its members having a low percentage of the household electronics market.

Electrolink believes its membership will grow such that its surplus of evidence will not be so large in future. It says it has filled a “potentially serious gap in the national capability” to recycle electrical waste under the WEEE Regulations, which the UK must do in order to meet Europe's WEEE Directive.

Criticism

Electrolink has been criticised by other producer compliance schemes, notably REPIC, the largest scheme in the household electronics market, which labelled the approach “extreme” (see letsrecycle.com story).

But Paul van Danzig, sales and marketing manager for Electrolink, dismissed REPIC's suggestion that Electrolink's over-collection would mean it faces de-registration as a scheme, saying such a possibility was “not supported by the Regulations or the revised guidance issued as recently as August 2007”.

Mr van Danzig told letsrecycle.com his scheme had kept the government and regulators “fully informed” of its activities, and had also taken advice from lawyers and accountants concerning the scheme's approach. “They have expressed confidence in its approach to these matters,” he said.

Turning the tables on its critics, Electrolink suggested that the compliance schemes most at risk of de-registration or non-compliance fines were those that failed to contract with enough local authority collection sites.

It has also said rivals have “apparently under-estimated the overall costs involved in the process from DCF to evidence note. It can be expected that some producers will change schemes in future years as the Regulations take full effect and cost realities become clear.”

Councils

The scheme has defended its policy of signing up as many local authorities as possible already over the summer.

Its offer to councils that its service would be “cost-neutral” and leave existing contractual arrangements for CA sites unaffected, meant Electrolink even received unsolicited offers to tender from councils running DCFs, it said.

“Generally the EEE industry-based schemes had the most difficulty in reaching agreements with local authorities, except those who adopted Electrolink's approach to the issue,” Mr Van Danzig said.