January start for WEEE producer responsibility “optimistic”

New EU-inspired regulations making producers responsible for collecting and recycling electronics they place on the market are now due for completion in summer 2005 (see letsrecycle.com story). But, the DTI's announcement that producer responsibility will start in January has raised eyebrows in some quarters.

”The government has opted for an extremely ambitious timetable, and it will require strong leadership to implement“
– Phil Conran, Transform
Vivien Williams, environment manager at producer-retailer Dixons Group, warned that January is a particularly busy period for the retail sector. Ms Williams said: “We remain concerned that January 2006 – one of the busiest periods of the year for electrical retailers – has been chosen as the new start date.

“We will continue to press government to look at bringing in the change on the commencement date in April 2006,” she added.

Optimistic
Phil Conran, recycling manager for Biffa Waste Services, part of the WEEE scheme Transform, said although he was pleased with the delay, the new date is “very optimistic”. He said industry had expected a March 2006 start date, similar to Germany's implementation of the European WEEE Directive.

Mr Conran said: “It is an extremely ambitious timetable, and it will require strong leadership to implement. To work the timetable we need to be starting now. There are a huge number of issues that need to be compressed into a tight timescale.”

The formulation of the retailers' compliance scheme and the issue of data collection were two important issues Mr Conran said needed addressing as soon as possible.

Challenging

Valpak, which now claims to be the UK's largest pre-compliance scheme for WEEE, also welcomed the delay to producer responsibility, but added its warning that the January start “is an extremely challenging deadline”. And Mike Sadler, head of WEEE pre-compliance at Valpak, said: “Full cooperation between government and industry will be required to achieve it.”

Producers' consortium REPIC – which claims its members will be responsible for 80% of the costs of recycling WEEE goods – went further, suggesting that crunch talks are needed between producers, retailers and local authorities to address “outstanding issues” in the new regulations.

While welcoming the delay to the start date for producer responsibility, REPIC's chief executive Dr Philip Morton is continuing to push the need for a “visible fee” to be brought in to show consumers how much they are paying on new goods for them to be recycled. This idea, which is not the preferred approach of the DTI and would mean “consumers do not pay more for recycling than the costs involved”, Dr Morton said.