Waste electronics consultation closed to responses

The Directive is due to be drafted into UK legislation by August 2004. The government's Department of Trade and Industry is holding three consultation periods to get the responses of all stakeholders involved in its implementation.

The first of these consultation papers, described by the DTI as a “broad brush discussion paper”, officially closed on May 30 after receiving more than 300 responses. This first period lasted just eight weeks, instead of the usual 12 for consultations, because the DTI wanted to “move ahead as quickly as possible and provide an early steer on the detail of likely options”.

A spokesperson for the DTI said: “The next stage is looking at the responses in detail and issuing our response. This will form the basis for the second consultation period due in the autumn of this year when we will be looking more specifically about developing the legislation. The final consultation period will be a draft paper for the legislation's details to be finalised.”

ICER

The Industry Council for Electronic Equipment Recycling (ICER) represents organisations from all sectors affected by the Directive, including producers, retailers, local authorities and recyclers. ICER was one of the parties to respond to the consultation paper.

Throughout its response, ICER stressed the need for flexibility in many areas of government legislation including funding, collection, collective schemes and visible fees. ICER wrote: “Government can take the lightest regulatory approach on this issue. Producers who wish to set a ‘visible fee’ should be able to decide which products it applies to, the level of fee and how to administer and distribute the funds.”

On the subject of financial guarantees for EEE produced after August 2005, it said: “Producers want flexibility to provide guarantees in a way which suits them best.”

LARAC

The Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee (LARAC) voiced strong opposition to any obligatory local authority involvement in WEEE collection in its response to consultation. It advocated the strict producer responsibility laid out in the directive but recognised that some local authorities may wish to participate.

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