Councils to bid for retailers&#39 WEEE funding from January

Valpak was named as preferred bidder to run the BRC retailers' compliance scheme last month (see letsrecycle.com story). The scheme is to help retailers in the UK carry out their obligations stemming from Europe's WEEE Directive.

” Local authorities will be able to start to bid for funding in January for a four week period. “
– Mike Sadler, Valpak
The scheme is anticipating a 6.2 million fund from retail members to upgrade council civic amenity sites so they can form part of a network of designated collection facilities (DCFs).

Each site would be able to bid for up to 6,000 to provide separate collections for waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) handed in by householders.

Speaking this week, Valpak's head of WEEE Compliance, Mike Sadler, said that he hoped that the government would have new regulations implementing Europe's WEEE Directive in place by October, and that data submissions from retailers would begin in November.

Regarding local authorities, he said: “Local authorities will be able to start to bid for funding in January for a four week period. CA sites seem to be quite keen to become DCFs – 70% have been positive on joining up to the scheme.”

Councils will be able to bid for funding of up to 6,000 would be provided for upgrading each civic amenity site to collect WEEE.

Targets
Mr Sadler said local authorities would be able to count WEEE collections towards their statutory recycling targets, and all DCFs would avoid WEEE recycling costs – including hazardous waste costs. The level of segregation would be negotiable, Mr Sadler said.

Local authorities would be obliged to meet WEEE collection targets whether sites have DCF status or not, Mr Sadler warned.

Sites already seeing a positive value from waste electronics they collect will not need to sign up to DCF status, although they will be included as part of the “adequate network” of sites required by the Directive. Valpak is offering such sites “associate collector” status, which will mean their sites are publicised as collection points.

Community
Mr Sadler said Valpak is to work with the community sector through the Furniture Re-use Network to try and maximise the amount of waste equipment that is re-used. Valpak is also looking to work with organisations including the Salvation Army to increase the number of collection sites that will be available.

He said in terms of treatment capacity, Valpak believes about 1.6 million tonnes of equipment could be dealt with each year, whereas there is only about 1.1 million tonnes of equipment that will require treatment.

However, the challenge will be in achieving enough capacity in regions like Scotland, Wales and London – as well as being able to deal with all ten categories of waste electronics under the Directive's scope.

Letsrecycle.com is holding a special conference on the way forward for waste electronics on October 12. For more details see the letsrecycle.com events page