The scheme met with its local authority and waste management partners in London on Friday, to discuss the current refusal by rival producer schemes to purchase its surplus recycling evidence for waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE).
Nevertheless, speaking to letsrecycle.com after Friday's meeting, the scheme said it had the firm backing of its partners in continuing to argue for the surplus evidence notes to cover all costs from local authority sites once unwanted equipment has been dropped off by householders.
Minister
Electrolink chief executive Barry Van Danzig said his scheme's WEEE partners would now make use of their contacts to seek a meeting with the Defra minister Mrs Ruddock to press the point.
Although the collection network for WEEE is being overseen by the government's Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR), Mr Van Danzig said they were calling on Mrs Ruddock to intervene because of her Department's relationship with the Environment Agency, which is the regulatory body for the WEEE Regulations.
He claimed the Agency should be enforcing the WEEE Regulations by forcing producer schemes to buy the surplus WEEE evidence notes if they do not already hold sufficient to meet their members' obligations. Mr Van Danzig said the Agency had been passing on all queries about the Regulations to BERR, and that BERR had not provided a “conclusive view” to show that Electrolink cannot charge the prices for evidence notes it is currently offering.
Costs
If the scrap value is passed on to the producer to reduce his costs, that's going to hit Council Tax payers as a stealth tax.
Barry Van Danzig, Electrolink
Asked about the costs Electrolink is offering for its evidence notes, Mr Van Danzig insisted they do not include interest charges to cover his company's capital costs, since BERR had forbidden the inclusion of interest costs. The Electrolink chief executive said the price he was offering for the surplus notes included the handling costs the Regulations allowed to be passed on to producers plus a 15% mark-up.
And, Mr Van Danzig said his local authority partners did not believe they could carry out the required work collecting WEEE for less than the current pricing level.
It is thought that other producer schemes believe that, for example, evidence notes for large domestic appliances (LDA) should be at a price close to zero, since scrap value would counter costs associated with transporting goods onwards to a recycling plant. But under Electrolink's arrangements with its local authority partners, scrap value remains with their partners. It is offering £40 per tonne as a sale price for LDA evidence notes.
“If the scrap value is passed on to the producer to reduce his costs,” Mr Van Danzig said, “that's going to hit Council Tax payers as a stealth tax.”
Review
The Electrolink chief executive has offered an independent review of his partners' WEEE collection costs, and he said he had also offered for producer schemes to pay their lower price offer ahead of an independent review before settling up the remainder according to the review.
This offer has not been accepted, Mr Van Danzig said. “We made the offer – why don't you pay your figure now, and that would allow the system to continue, and then we will establish in the review what the final costs have been, and you can pay the difference. That offer has not been accepted.”
With the Agency silent on the issue, BERR is understood to remain unconvinced by Electrolink's current price offer for evidence. And, Electrolink's local authority partners do not want other schemes entering their sites to collect their WEEE.
Going forward, if rival producers do not buy Electrolink's evidence, or are not forced to buy the evidence the scheme said the only option to keep its partners separating WEEE from the scrap or general waste streams was to allow it to charge interest within evidence notes and continue funding the collections.
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