Sources told letsrecycle.com that the delay follows hard on the heels of the decision by the Department of Trade and Industry to abandon the concept of a clearing house to oversee the WEEE regime.
”The government is expected to announce its plans for a “no-frills” regulatory approach.“
While the government is still to finalise it will fully implement the WEEE legislation the alternative to a clearing house approach is now becoming clear.
The government is expected to announce its plans for a “no-frills” regulatory approach, which will differ from the original clearing house plan.
One factor behind this is that the DTI is keen on a “light-touch” approach to the regulation. This style of administering producer responsibility is favoured by the DTI and echoes that adopted for the End of Life Vehicle (ELV) legislation, an approach recently endorsed by Prime Minister Tony Blair himself.
No-frills system
Guidance put together by the Industry Council for Electronic Equipment Recycling (ICER) for its members is understood to reflect how this might work. The DTI and Environment Agency could be responsible for functions within the new regulatory system.
ICER has suggested that it is possible that: “The Environment Agency will be responsible for registering producers and collecting a fee to cover the cost of registration and enforcement, maintaining a database of designated collection facilities and collecting data on the amount of WEEE collected. The DTI will be responsible for allocating designated collection facilities to large producers and compliance schemes.”
“The allocation of designated collection facilities will be for a three year period. This allocation would be in proportion to their market share. It would then be responsible for all of the WEEE arising at its sites, not just its own products,” it added.
Split opinions
The announcement of a delay will split industry opinions. Many have supported the idea of as it will allow designated collection facilities more time to make changes to their sites.
There has been considerable pressure from some government quarters to implement the directive on time in order to spare local authorities the cost of dealing with hazardous WEEE after the Hazardous Waste Regulations come into force in July.
The new regulations will force authorities to properly deal with hazardous WEEE but there will be no producer responsibility in place to cover this meaning the cost, which could be substantial, will fall on the councils.
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Last week Germany announced that it would not be ready for the August 13 2005 deadline and it would be implementing the legislation at the beginning of March 2006. (see letsrecycle.com story).
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