Dutch scheme leads UK business WEEE market

It shows that members of the Dutch scheme Accerio WEEE Scheme hold 31.7% of the B2B electronics market for the UK.

[Updated, June 18]: The Environment Agency has now said that the reported tonnage for business electronics on the UK market currently stands at 518,416 tonnes for 2006.

This number is substantially less than had been suggested, because some producers had been reporting their market data in kilogrammes, rather than tonnes. The figure had been previously estimated as high as one million tonnes.

B2B WEEE 

Under the WEEE Regulations, from July 1 all waste electronics arising from businesses must be recycled to the standards of Europe's WEEE Directive. Apart from equipment placed on the market before the Directive came into force (August 2005), producers must ensure that this collection and recycling takes place through arrangements with their customers or via compliance schemes.

Unlike with the household WEEE data, this B2B market share data does not correlate to exactly how much business WEEE each scheme must collect. Although schemes will be responsible for financing collection, treatment, recovery and disposal of non-household WEEE, this may not relate to the amount placed on the market because return rates may be different, or producers may choose to deal with equipment themselves, rather than leave it to schemes.

There may also be arrangements between producers and end users so that end users finance the treatment of WEEE.

This B2B information was released by the Agency after a request by compliance scheme Transform, following data released on the household electronics market (see letsrecycle.com story). The Agency noted in its data that two schemes did not have their data included – My Key Recycling Scheme is not seeking members, and Lundy Lifecycle submitted its data late.

Accerio

The data shows that a Dutch scheme – Accerio WEEE Scheme – holds by far the largest market share by tonnage for business-to-business waste electrical and electronic equipment.

The scheme, which describes its clients as “generally global IT brands”, is based near Amsterdam-Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands. Its members hold almost a third of the UK's B2B market according to the Agency data.

Accerio is an open scheme but only operates in the non-household WEEE sector. It says it aims to be a “B2B scheme for organisations wanting the flexibility of managing their own take-back and recycling programmes”.

Top 10

In the rest of the top 10 schemes for business WEEE, two schemes hold just over 10% of the market – the pan-EU scheme European Recycling Platform (ERP) and the Glasgow-based scheme Dataserv Compliance Services.

Three schemes hold around 6%-7% of the market – Biffa-run scheme Transform, Valpak and DHL Compliance. The rest of the top 10 comprises REPIC (3.9% of market share), B2B Compliance (2.8%), Electrolink (2.8%) and WEEECare (2.5%).

The Agency data shows 35 different compliance schemes with an interest in B2B WEEE, with the mid-table including (in size order) the likes of Lumicom, Advantage Waste Brokers, WE3 compliance, Recolight, B2BWEEE-Scheme, Comply Direct, Compliance 4U, WEEE Link, Veolia and WEEE Compliance UK.

Categories

Among the different categories of B2B electronics, three schemes dominate the display equipment sector (televisions and monitors) – ERP UK, Dataserv Compliance Services and Accerio WEEE Scheme – with around 22-25% of that market.

Bromsgrove-based Advantage Waste Brokers leads the B2B cooling equipment market with a 30.4% market share, followed by Valpak and Compliance 4U Ltd with 16-17% of the market, and REPIC on 10.7%.

See the following tables for the top 10 schemes and their percentage market share in each category of business WEEE:

Category 1 – Large household appliances:	Category 2 – Small household appliances:
Category 3 – IT and Telecomms equipment:	Category 4 – Consumer equipment:
Category 5 – Lighting equipment:	Category 6 – Electrical tools:
Category 7 – Toys, leisure and sports:	Category 8 – Medical devices:
Category 9 – Monitoring and control:	Category 10 – Automatic dispensers:
Cooling appliances containing refrigerants:	Display equipment:
Gas discharge lamps: