Mark Downs, the DTI's head of recycling and producer responsibility, has reassured worried council officers that if they increase collections of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), costs would be reimbursed by electrical manufacturers.
Prospect
Dr Downs spoke at one of the most over-subscribed workshops at this week's LARAC Conference, on 'Implementing WEEE'. He told a tightly packed crowd of recycling officers: “There is no prospect of producers not paying for everything that's collected. If that kind of waste is collected, they will pay.”
Several officers claimed manufacturers had told them they would refuse to pay for the recycling of more than 4kg per head of electrical goods. This is the target set by the WEEE Directive for 2006, which the UK may have already exceeded, thanks mainly to collections of heavy fridges and IT equipment.
But Dr Downs rejected this possibility. He insisted: “It's a legal obligation for them to pay everything. They will have to pick up the responsibility collectively on the basis of market share.”
Civic amenity sites
Several officers said they did not have space on their civic amenity (CA) sites to collect and sort additional WEEE and would be unable to expand without guaranteed funds. Dr Downs has said previously he wants to use council CA sites to collect WEEE, because they already have suitable systems in place. But he stressed there is no obligation on local authorities and denied the government wants to make local authorities collect WEEE from the kerbside.
“There shouldn't be an assumption that manufacturers will be able to require local authorities to do anything – that will not be the case,” he said. “It's the producers who have the responsibility for recycling that equipment and their responsibility is for sorting and collection.”
But in response to suggestions that retailers operate take-back schemes at their stores, Dr Downs pointed out that most were not licensed or equipped for waste management, and that they would only be obliged to take products back if a new product was being sold at the same time. “The important thing is to have WEEE deposited where appropriate to encourage recycling – this could be CA sites,” he said.
The DTI was said to be disappointed that only 41 councils responded to the first round of its consultation on the UK implementation of the WEEE Directive, which finished in May 2003. The second round will begin this winter.
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