“Frustration” for WEEE compliance schemes

A window of opportunity was opened earlier this month to allow the schemes that were short of WEEE recycling evidence, including Repic, ERP and Transform, to acquire it from Electrolink, which held a large evidence surplus (see letsrecycle.com story).

It has emerged that, following that period, those schemes that were short of evidence are confident that they have now acquired enough to meet their members' obligations, though the data must be verified by the environment agencies before their compliance is confirmed.

This means that civic amenity sites and local authorities should now receive the outstanding money they are owed for services they provided during the 2007 compliance period, but uncertainty remains over the situation regarding payments for the current period.

Effect

While the situation for the 2007 compliance period now appears clearer, concerns have been expressed by some schemes about the effect that similar problems in 2008 could have on the system.

Edward Cooke, of producer compliance scheme WeeeLink, told letsrecycle.com that the potential for the problems to be repeated this year could damage belief in the WEEE system among schemes, producers, treatment facilities and councils.

“It has to be resolved,” he said. “BERR has taken it upon itself to do that, and it's failed. Every month that this carries on, it drains confidence out of the system.

“There is frustration everywhere that one issue is taking up our regulators' time,” he added.

Valpak, which, like WEEE-Link, believes that it met its obligations for the 2007 period before the original June 16 deadline for submissions of compliance (see letsrecycle.com story) welcomed the intervention by the Government to ensure that those schemes thought to be non-compliant for 2007 were able to meet their obligations.

“I'm obviously pleased that the government has taken steps to ensure that the other schemes fell into line,” Valpak's commercial manager, Duncan Simpson, told letsrecycle.com. “The fact that it's there and it's being done is to the benefit of the system

To avoid a similar situation arising again, Valpak has called for the enforcement agencies to take an arbitration role between schemes, but Mr Simpson warned that stopping any over-collection of evidence by schemes was not the solution. He said that “we think that there shouldn't be some centralised system, it can become overly prescriptive”.

He explained that over-collection would occur to a certain extent as schemes' obligations were prone to fluctuation throughout the year, due to being based on the quarterly amount of EEE placed on the market by their producer members, and also the total amount of EEE in the UK.

And, he said that this meant that “the arbitration system we have proposed becomes important. Data management is very important but arbitration – if you felt you were being held to ransom, they would sit the groups down and work through the issues.

“Where someone knows they've got a very small obligation and they hold a lot of evidence, that's something the arbitration process could deal with early on,” he added.

Also emphasising that all schemes over-collected during the year to some extent, Mr Cooke agreed with the idea of arbitration, but only “in the short term”, adding that “in the longer term we need it to be sorted once and for all”.

Debate

As well as the WEEE Stakeholder and Advisory Board meetings held last week, it is understood that further discussions took place involving compliance schemes, including Electrolink and Repic, and the Environment Agency.

Discussions included two core issues: how schemes with a shortage of WEEE collections should proceed; and how schemes with too few members and an excess of collection facilities should act.

There are different views over whether the debate is about evidence or collection. Comments made to letsrecycle.com include: “the issue is not over evidence as it is clear that schemes will not be allowed to trade large amounts of evidence in the future”. The alternative view is that the two are inherently linked.

Barry Van Danzig, chief executive of Electrolink, told letsrecycle.com that his compliance scheme is willing to divest some of its surplus contracts for WEEE on payment of an appropriate sale price.

In effect, this would mean schemes needing access to more CA sites would have to pay a transfer fee to Electrolink for the contracted sites' material, something which other compliance schemes are not expected to have factored into their business plans.

“Alternatively,” Mr Van Danzig added, “We are prepared to accept members of other schemes into our scheme at no extra cost. We are also writing to all the members of under-subscribed schemes inviting them to come and talk to us and hear about the options moving forward.”

Repic is thought to consider that the way forward will be for schemes with too many collection points to release these in line with guidance from BERR and the Agencies and that, while member companies can be freely targeted by other schemes, there are contracts in place.

Dr Phil Morton, chief executive of Repic, said: “It would be inconceivable to think that producer organisations would consider the option of being forced to join any particular scheme other that one which they have made their choice to join.”

And, it is believed that the Agencies are unlikely to take action over the relationship between schemes, and their operational approach, unless they feel it will directly affect the UK's ability to meet its overall WEEE collection obligations.

However, the Environment Agency has confirmed that schemes will have to clearly outline how they plan to meet their obligations, with action plans to accompany their overall operational plans.

Bob Mead, WEEE project manager at the Agency, told letsrecycle.com that “we're expecting schemes to come to us with proposals for how they're going to do it, and a timescale for that”.

“We have to be realistic, it probably will have to be staged,” he added, perhaps reflecting the changing nature of schemes' obligations as the compliance year progresses.

And, he explained that “monitoring will depend on the detail of the action plan”, with the Agencies' approach depending on a particular scheme's undertakings.