The allegation of increasing costs being passed onto consumers – with consequent claimed benefits for producers – comes from a number of retailers and recyclers of electrical goods. They argue that prior to the revised WEEE system, introduced in 2014, some of the value derived from the selling of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) ‘evidence notes’ – paid for by producers of equipment – had helped to fund the collections of waste appliances such as fridges from households.
However, it is claimed that this ‘support measure’ is no longer viable since changes to the way that producers of electronic goods fund the recycling of WEEE were brought into effect at the start of 2014, designed to reduce the cost of compliance with the regulations for electronics producers.
Evidence
‘Evidence notes’ are used to demonstrate that producers have funded the recycling of a volume of WEEE in proportion to the amount of new products they have placed onto the market in the UK.
A contrary view exists with regard to the claim that consumers are losing out under the revised system. Many producers of electronic goods claimed that the pre-2014 system was too costly, as producer compliance schemes – who secure the evidence notes on behalf of producers – were able to trade surplus evidence at a greater price to those unable to meet their targets. In effect, these producers considered this was not appropriate to the system.
The government revision to the WEEE system saw a significant change in that rather than having to secure evidence, an option was introduced to pay a compliance fee if evidence wasn’t obtained subject to a number of qualifications.
Estimates by the government suggest that around £18 million is likely to have been removed from the overall cost of the WEEE system as a result of the revised regulations.
Now, critics are claiming that while this reduction has lessened the cost of compliance for producers, unfairly a smaller proportion of the cost of the collection of WEEE is being borne through revenue from WEEE evidence. Previously some retailers would have been able to subsidise the cost of collecting old electrical items from householders or even collect free of charge, as they may have been able to recoup the cost from the evidence note value as well as some of the commodity value through profit sharing arrangements with a partner compliance scheme.
Surplus
This was helped especially if the compliance scheme had a surplus of evidence under the old system and could sell this at a premium to compliance schemes which were short of evidence. Now, under the new system, there is no automatic requirement for the compliance scheme short of evidence to have to buy from another compliance scheme because of the compliance fee option.
The revision to the WEEE system has become more significant, according to the critics, because of the falling value of metals and other commodities.
A charge of about £10 for collection of an old appliance when a new one is delivered is now standard amongst many retailers, some of whom would have offered the service free of charge before the regulations came into effect. Retailers including AO.com, Argos, Currys, John Lewis and Tesco all charge for the collection of old appliances.
But, supporters of the new system point out that there is no requirement on producers or WEEE schemes to subsidise household collections by retailers. It has also been suggested that the price of evidence should match the ‘true cost’ for treatment and recovery of WEEE and that the compliance schemes collecting a greater proportion of WEEE through household collections than they are obligated to are doing so at their own risk.
While the regulations state that distributors of new electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) are required to ensure that WEEE from households can be returned to them free of charge in-store – there is no requirement for them to collect WEEE from householders, and no requirement for producer compliance schemes to pay for any WEEE that a retailer has collected.
One WEEE expert said that the problem centres on the fact that the rules only put a legal duty on producers through their compliance schemes to collect material from designated collection facilities, usually civic amenity sites.
He said: “The nub of the problem is producers only have to fund DCF network not retailer take back routes. There is a legal obligation to clear the DCF network and only when it makes commercial sense would a PCS take on these types of extra-curricular type of WEEE evidence producing collections.”
Obligation
However, the critics of the producers reason that there is a moral and financial obligation on them to support collections from households and that while the rules may not be specific on that point, in effect producers are sidestepping their responsibilities. One said: “This is a valuable source of WEEE from the doorstep and collections should be supported without the burden of collection costs falling on the consumer.”
And, letsrecycle.com was also reminded that the minister behind the new regulations had said that the consumer would benefit from the new system.
Commenting on the regulations at an event in March 2014, Michael Fallon, who was the government minister responsible for new regulations, said: “I am sure these will translate into lower compliance costs for companies here today and indeed for the thousands of producers placing electrical equipment on the market in the UK this will ultimately benefit consumers.”
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