The claim came as part of the LGA's response to a Parliamentary inquiry into the government's implementation of the End of Life Vehicles (ELV) Directive and the Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment (WEEE) Directive.
The LGA said that packaging waste regulations in place since 1994 have made producers responsible for only the treatment side of recycling, and it is up to councils to collect the required amount of packaging from the domestic waste stream.
The Association is now concerned – particularly regarding WEEE – that producers will avoid paying the “full cost of recovery”. If producers are made responsible for the costs of recycling WEEE only once it has reached central points (such as civic amenity sites), the LGA argued that councils will therefore have to pay for the separate collection from households.
Writing to Parliament's Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, Alice Roberts, the LGA executive manager for waste and environment, said: “Local authorities have made clear that there must be no obligation placed on local authorities for separately collecting WEEE, as effectively happened with packaging.”
The LGA said that financial incentives must be provided for local authorities to separate out WEEE, paid directly by producers, not via the taxpayer. Another option would be for councils to be allowed to charge for the sale of separately collected WEEE material.
ELVs
As the new treatment standards for end of life vehicles came into force this month, the LGA has said that there could be major difficulties for local authorities in dealing with abandoned vehicles.
The regulations require many dismantlers to upgrade their sites to improve environmental standards, but the LGA warned that many dismantlers may have held back from such upgrades for reasons of expense and uncertainty. This would mean there would be fewer companies able to take on council abandoned vehicle contracts, affecting the competitiveness of the tendering process.
The LGA said: “There is potential for local authorities' contractors not being compliant with the regulations. The result will be increased costs because, for example, instead of having four contractors an authority would only have one to choose from.”
There is also “considerable concern” about the scale of the expected increase in abandoned vehicles resulting from the government's decision to make the last owner responsible for their ELV until 2007.
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