DTI accused over Own Marque approach to vehicles recycling

The comments come from the British Metal Recyclers Association whose members range from smaller metal recyclers to the large firms European Metal Recycling and Sims Recycling.

The association repeatedly suggests that the proposals from the Department of Trade and Industry are biased in favour of the motor manufacturers and also accuses the DTI of “sleight of hand”. It states: “There are either signs of a chronic lack of commercial awareness within the Department (DTI) … or an indication of unacceptable partiality towards the producers.”

And, the recyclers say that the DTI is not building in any checks into the proposed system “to ensure there is no ongoing abuse of dominant position by the vehicle manufacturers.”

The metal recyclers are angry over the DTI's proposed system which would require motor manufacturers generally to be responsible for their own marques (brands). This stems back to June 2002 when the Department said that producers will not become responsible for providing free take back of all complete ELVs until 2007 in common with producers in the majority of other EU members states.

More recently the DTI proposed that with the ELV directive requiring weight-based recovery and recycling targets to be achieved in 2006 “producers' networks of authorised treatment facilities (ATFs) must be in place ahead of 2006. By July 2005 a producer must submit a plan to show he has established a network of ATFs to deal with all the vehicles for which he has responsibility and which are likely to become ELVs during 2006.”
The BMRA suggests that a Central Fund option should be adopted rather than the current approach which is known as “Own Marque”.

Contracts

Under the proposed Own Marque system there would also be some treatment facilities likely to be left without contracts and the BMRA says that these operators will struggle.

It also cautions that the creation of a network of facilities by the manufacturers in 2006 ” is likely to be decimated in 2007 and subsequent years .. If the number of vehicles it actually received the year before fell short of plan. This approach will therefore create an impossible investment environment for the majority of ATFs.”