Producers back council WEEE proposals

Electronic goods producers have backed calls from the Local Government Association (LGA) to see councils given more freedom to retain income from WEEE, claiming it will prevent intermediary companies from profiting from the system.

In its Local Waste Review, published on Tuesday (June 5) (see letsrecycle.com story), the LGA called for councils to be given greater scope to take income from the waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) they collect, as well as opportunities for incentives for increasing collection rates.

The LGA comments have been welcomed in a statement from the Joint Trade Association (JTA). This is a trade body representing electronics producers including Candy, Samsung, Delonghi, Toshiba and Dell as well as producer compliance schemes such as B2B Compliance, ERP UK, Recolight and Repic.

JTA members Panasonic and Hewlett Packard said that the proposals, which are reflected in options 2, 3 and 4 in the current consultation on the WEEE system, would see the financial benefits of collecting WEEE go directly to local authorities and not to intermediary companies that collect more WEEE than they require in order to trade it at a profit.

Under the existing regime, councils are required to offer free access to the WEEE collected at civic amenity sites to producer compliance schemes, which have an obligation to collect the material for recycling on behalf of their members.

Many local authorities already receive income back for the material collected at civic amenity sites which are registered as designated collection facilities. But, options 3 and 4 in the proposals now being consulted upon by the Department for Business provide for the creation of national bodies which could generate income for local authorities, potentially through a funding scheme.

Consultation

The consultation into proposed changes to the system is being carried out by the Department for Business in response to claims by producers of electronic goods that the cost of compliance with the regulations does not reflect the true cost of recycling.

Among the options, the government is proposing that local authorities should be able to manage WEEE streams that they perceive to have a value, in order to gain the financial benefit from it. Tonnages would be recorded centrally and divided amongst the compliance schemes free of charge, so no evidence value could be extracted.

In its consultation document, BIS has outlined four proposed options for the future of the WEEE system, including:

• Option 1: No change and continue with the current system;
• Option 2: Introduce a National Producer Compliance Scheme, instead of competition between current compliance schemes;
• Option 3: Setting targets for compliance schemes along with a compliance fee if these are not met, instead of the trading of WEEE evidence data between collection schemes, and;
• Option 4: Matching collection sites to compliance schemes.

The JTA has previously revealed that it has a preference for the government to pursue option four, as it is already in operation in a number of European countries, but says that it would also be supportive of option three if it was found to be the favoured system following the consultation.

Simon Eves, head of environmental affairs at Panasonic UK, said: The governments WEEE options four and three both support the LGA position, by allowing local authorities to decide, on an annual basis, to control waste and to retain any value. We think that is right and fair. But vitally, through their compliance schemes, producers will always be there to collect and recycle any streams that local authorities do not want to control.

Cost

Opponents of proposed changes to the existing WEEE regime claim that councils would be forced to pay more towards the cost of WEEE recycling if the cost of compliance with the regulations is reduced, as higher operating costs for recyclers will naturally be passed on to local authorities (see letsrecycle.com story).

The government consultation on the WEEE regulations is due to close on June 21.