Study maps recycling routes for B2B WEEE

The majority of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) generated by businesses in the UK is likely to be recycled outside of the existing producer compliance system, a study has claimed.

This echoes the comments of B2B WEEE compliance schemes, who say that much of the WEEE generated by businesses, unlike in the consumer chain, is recycled or reused by organisations outside of the producer compliance system.

The study Business-to-Business Information Technology (B2B IT) User Practices at End of Life in the UK, Germany and France was produced by resource management consultant Richard Peagam of LRS Consultancy, and was published in the Yale Journal of Industrial Ecology this week.

In his study, which was compiled by surveying businesses that use IT equipment, Mr Peagam found that the product lifetime for business WEEE tends to be much shorter than that for consumer WEEE (around three years), although it is usually still functional once it has left the first user and often may have some financial value.

As a result, he found, many organisations recycle or refurbish end of life equipment through informal arrangements or using a contractor, both of which are not covered by WEEE Directive reporting.

Standards

And, he added that producers can guarantee that WEEE treated outside of the compliance system is being properly collected or treated by establishing treatment standards with the organisations that are collecting the material.

He said: The basic principle of extended producer responsbility is that making manufacturers responsible for the whole life cycle of their products will drive them toward more sustainable business models in this area. Manufacturers have not established WEEE collection in order to reuse components or obtain materials for their own supply chains voluntarily; most comply collectively and financially through producer compliance schemes.

Conversely, there are apparently some organisations voluntarily collecting WEEE already, and presumably these components or materials are fed into a supply chain at some point. The producers extended responsibility in this case could be met through the development of treatment standards or partnerships with those organisations that have a use for the potential commodity in their existing business model.

Publication of the paper comes as the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) is part-way through its consultation on proposed changes to the WEEE system, which will determine the future of the producer responsibility regulations around the collection and treatment of WEEE in the UK (see letsrecycle.com story).

Substantiated estimates

In the consultation, BIS has proposed that substantiated estimates be used to enable the UK to meet its WEEE recycling target, by collecting data on the amount of WEEE treated outside of the WEEE system.

Commenting on the report, David Burton, project director of business WEEE compliance scheme B2B Compliance said that the study proved B2Bs contention that much of UKs the business WEEE is being recycled through unofficial routes.

He said: This particularly applies to IT where there is a residual added value, the items can be re-used (which is top of the hierarchy of preference), and are not classified as waste but handled, largely, through asset management companies.

And, he also backed proposals by BIS to use substantiated estimates to measure the amount of B2B WEEE collected outside of the compliance system.

He added: The approach by BIS, initially through trials on large domestic appliances, is to create protocols essentially assessments of what tonnages are handled outside the WEEE system the other, and more expensive and bureaucratic alternative, is to regulate outside of the WEEE system.

Counting what goes as scrap outside of the WEEE system, but through a regulated and bona fide waste system, should address environmental concerns. To begin, however, to assess what happens outside of the waste system would be more difficult and it is not to say that the ultimate disposal of these end-of-life products do not meet the relevant waste legislation requirements.