But, the DTI has told letsrecycle.com it expects to publish draft regulations to implement the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive in the “next couple of weeks”.
The draft regulations will be published for consultation alongside draft guidance from the Environment Agency. The European WEEE Directive sets targets and standards for the separate collection, re-use, treatment, recycling and disposal of old electrical goods.
The publication of the draft regulations and guidance had been scheduled by the DTI for “late spring” in order to meet the August 13, 2004 deadline of transposing the European Directive into UK law.
A spokeswoman for the DTI said today: “A lot of countries across Europe have delayed, like France, Germany and Ireland. We have been in extensive talks with industry and hope to publish the last consultation in the next couple of weeks.”
She explained that this third consultation will last until October and the government is hoping to then shortly release the final regulations so UK industry has time to prepare for when they come into affect in August 2005. “We want to get it right for the UK,” the spokeswoman said.
The UK could be subject to a penalty for not meeting the deadline set by Europe for the transposition of the WEEE Directive into domestic law.
The hold-up has mainly stemmed from the government and industry trying to resolve issues surrounding the operations of a proposed “clearing house” to manage producer responsibility of WEEE.
Delays
Stakeholders affected by the WEEE Directive include electronics manufacturers who are responsible for the recycling of WEEE, retailers who are responsible for collection, local authorities that may be involved in collection, electrical equipment recyclers and community re-use groups. Several of these groups have had to delay moving forward with their plans for WEEE until the draft regulations are published.
The British Retail Consortium last month revealed that it has suspended its search for a service provider for its compliance scheme for retailers (see letsrecycle.com story). The BRC is waiting to see how the scheme, which will handle retailers' obligations of financing collection points for household WEEE, will interact with the clearing house.
Electrical equipment manufacturers and importers have also started to create and join compliance schemes, such as REPIC and the Biffa-EMR alliance Transform. But again progress on how they will operate has been deferred until the government releases the details of the clearing house's operations.
Because the publication of the Environment Agency's draft guidance on the treatment of WEEE has been postponed to coincide with the draft regulations, the Industry Council for Electronic Equipment Recycling has put on hold a standard for cathode ray tube recyclers to make sure the system fits in with the guidance. The standard was due to be launched in mid-June to coincide with the publication of the last WEEE consultation (see letsrecycle.com story).
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