The British Retail Consortium is currently in talks with the DTI on setting up a compliance scheme to assist retailers in meeting their obligations under forthcoming waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) regulations.
For the sake of its members who face obligations as both producers and retailers, the BRC has said it would like to work closely with a producers' compliance scheme on the new retailers' scheme.
”I would like to see the opportunity for whoever runs the retail compliance scheme contract to be able to offer producer and retailer compliance together. “
– Nigel Smith, BRC
Under the forthcoming regulations, retailers are likely to provide funds for the upgrading of local authority civic amenity sites to accept WEEE. The alternative option is for retailers to offer take back at their stores, but this option is not seen as viable for many companies.
Although it is the BRC that is putting the retailers' scheme together, the actual running of the scheme will eventually fall to an outside contractor, likely to be a producer compliance scheme.
Tender
Nigel Smith, CSR policy director at the BRC, told letsrecycle.com: “Our role is to liaise with local authorities about the collection of WEEE, but our expertise does not lie on the logistics side, so the work will be contracted out under a competitive tender.
“Many of our retailers will be considered producers as well, it is actually surprising how many. I would like to see the opportunity for whoever wins the contract to be able to offer producer and retailer compliance together rather than having to sign up to separate schemes,” he added.
The BRC sent out a note last year asking for expressions of interest, and received 14 responses including most of the major compliance schemes.
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Mr Smith said: “We hope to have a final decision on the retail compliance scheme in the next few weeks. There is no fixed date and other issues may still arise but I hope to meet with the DTI as soon as possible.”
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