The WEEE Support Grants and Lands package will provide £5 million of interest free loans to electrical waste treatment facilities and £0.6 million of grants to charity reuse organisations.
The funds will be supplied by the WEEE Fund, which was set up by the Joint Trade Association (JTA) to administer how money collected through the WEEE Compliance Fee mechanism is spent.
The funding announcement follows disruptions in the flow of electrical items being collected for reuse and recycling, as many recycling centres have been closed and other electrical collections are reduced or suspended.
The grants and loans will support the continuation of the UK WEEE recycling system as the pandemic goes on, the organisers of the fund said.
‘Grateful’
Environment Minister Rebecca Pow said: “Right across the waste sector, I’m hugely grateful to the enormous effort being put in to keep crucial services running; and in such unprecedented times I understand the pressure the industry is under.
“This fund will help the sector to weather the effects of the coronavirus outbreak. Crucially it will also enable people to do the right thing and recycle more as we move towards a more circular economy.”v
“This fund will help the sector to weather the effects of the coronavirus outbreak”
Rapid help
Executive director of the WEEE Fund, Scott Butler said: “This is a fund that has been made available to provide rapid help and support to the electrical waste recycling sector as a result of the impact of the coronavirus.
“The loans will be 100% backked by the WEEE Fund – funded by producers of electrical equipment. We’ve designed the application process to ensure speedy allocation of funding, and included a range of support for re-use and recycling organisations.”
The WEEE Fund says it structured and allocated the fund on behalf of the 2019 Compliance Fee Advisory Panel, following extensive consultation and research amongst the electrical waste recycling sector. The research “identified the economic impact that the coronavirus was having on the sector”.
Applications for the grant and loans can be accessed through emailing a request and are open until the end of May.
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