Speaking to letsrecycle.com yesterday (July 2), the policy advisor for waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) at the EA, Adrian Harding, acknowledged that mistakes were made by reprocessors and schemes in classifying and categorising WEEE, but he believed there had been “no concerted effort” to pass off business WEEE in the consumer category.
This data had led a number of industry figures to suggest that some compliance schemes and/or reprocessors could have been accidentally or deliberately misclassifying business WEEE as household WEEE to benefit from the higher value of recycling evidence for the household stream.
However, Mr Harding claimed that misclassification of WEEE was “not a huge problem”, and explained that as well as the EA having checks in place to ensure both schemes and reprocessors were separating WEEE correctly, he was not aware of any enforcement action having been taken over misclassification of WEEE.
People do make mistakes, it tends to be more that than concerted efforts to cheat the system
Adrian Harding, Environment Agency
And, while he could not comment on the specific fluctuations in the figures for gas discharge lamps, he suggested it “could just be an aberration”, explaining that “over the course of the year I wouldn't expect the number of household lamps to change dramatically but it can change quarterly due to new collection points coming online and people reporting at different times.”
Mistakes
Commenting on the issue of reprocessors and schemes misclassifying WEEE, he said that: “People do make mistakes, it tends to be more that than concerted efforts to cheat the system.
“There usually are a few discrepancies but they tend to be of a minor nature so, to date, it's not a problem,” he added.
He also stressed that the EA had systems in place to ensure that both reprocessors, known as approved authorised treatment facilities (AATFs), and compliance schemes were separating WEEE correctly, including deciding whether it was household or business WEEE.
He said that, for AATFs: “When we audit those we check how they go about separating categories and household from non-household WEEE.
And, he added: “We do come across some situations when we do question the category being used and whether it's B2B or B2C and, if necessary, we take that up with them.”
Enforcement
While he was “not aware” of any enforcement action that had been taken against a scheme or reprocessor for misclassifying WEEE, Mr Harding explained that, if it did happen, the EA would initially seek to “correct the mistakes” by talking to those involved.
And, he said the Agency would only take enforcement action “if we thought there was some attempt to genuinely falsify records”.
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