BIS has reminded firms of the September 30 deadline for those seeking to submit proposals outlining how a compliance fee should be calculated and administered.
The reminder came in a document published on Friday (August 15), outlining how proposals for the calculation of the fee will be assessed. This is further to an initial document outlining the criteria that the proposed methodology should aim to meet, published in April (see letsrecycle.com story).
Producer compliance schemes would be liable to pay the fee if they fail to meet their members recycling obligations.
The fee is among the mechanisms to be used through the waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) regulations which are intended to ensure that the producers of electrical goods fund the recycling of their products once they reach the end of life.
Revised regulations came into effect from January bringing the requirements of the recast EU WEEE Directive into UK law and to address concerns from producers that the cost of compliance with the regulations did not reflect the true cost of recycling.
The revised regulations establish a system of household WEEE collection targets for producer compliance schemes. Should a scheme fail to meet its collection targets, it may choose to pay a compliance fee in order to meet the cost of its members obligations.
Collection
It is expected that the compliance fee should be set at a level that would encourage schemes to collect the amount of WEEE that they are obliged to collect on behalf of their members.
The fee would offer an alternative method of compliance for schemes that may be unable to secure the required tonnage to meet their members obligations, and would in the past have had to pay for evidence from over-collecting schemes.
This would address concerns raised under the previous regime that some compliance schemes were collecting surplus tonnages and selling evidence of recycling at an inflated price to schemes in need of evidence to meet their members obligations.
BIS is to approve one compliance fee methodology per year as well as an administrator to run it for one year.
Proposals submitted will be evaluated by the Department, and will then be subject to a four-week consultation, due to be carried out later in the year.
Announcement
An announcement on the option that is to be adopted for the 2014 compliance period is due in mid-February 2015.
The document is intended to help organisations considering submitting a proposal for a compliance fee methodology. It outlines a set of criteria that are essential if a proposal is to be considered for adoption under the new regime.
BIS has stated that each of the proposals submitted must encourage compliance through collection via local authority-run designated collection facilities, as well as reflecting the different market economics involved with the collection and treatment of WEEE.
The Department has asked for organisations submitting proposals to describe a methodology for calculating compliance fee costs for each WEEE stream and to outline how the cost of setting up and administering the compliance fee mechanism will be met.
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