WEEE schemes concerned by de minimis guidance

WEEE compliance schemes have expressed concern over BIS correspondence advising small electronics producers to delay registration for 2014.

In a letter sent on Wednesday (September 11) the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) told producers who place less than five tonnes of electronic goods onto the market to defer registering with a compliance scheme for 2014, even though they are supposed to sign up by November 15 this year.

While all obligated firms should sign up by November 15, BIS has singled out the smaller producers for its surprise advice over delaying sign-up which is seen as an indication that a de minimis tonnage level is to be introduced and smaller firms would consequently be exempt.

The de minimis threshold would come within the departments shake-up of the WEEE system, details of which are due by the end of the month (see letsrecycle.com story).

And, while compliance schemes are broadly in favour of a minimum threshold some have questioned whether its introduction will be achievable by January 2014 adding that some members may now choose not to re-register if they think they might possibly be exempt from the legislation.

Correspondence

In its letter to producers, BIS said: The existing WEEE Regulations require all producers to join or rejoin a scheme by 15 November 2013 for the 2014 compliance period. If it is possible, based on historical data, that your business may fall below any de minimis threshold effective from January 2014, you may wish to defer making any decisions about joining a compliance scheme for 2014 until the government has confirmed its decision regarding compliance requirements for small producers.

A range of views were expressed by compliance firms with an overall call for further guidance and advice from BIS as soon as possible.

Matthew Manning, key account specialist at compliance scheme Budget Pack said that schemes had been taken by surprise by the guidance from BIS, having not been warned that it was due to be sent out.

He said: It is great to see an increase in the likelihood of a de minimis threshold being introduced to the WEEE regulations. This will remove the administrative burden on small businesses currently obligated by the regulations, whilst not adversely affecting the UKs ability to achieve future WEEE recycling targets.

With the final consultation results being delayed until September it didnt seem likely that a de minimis would be rolled out in such a short timeframe.

Many compliance schemes, including Budget Pack, have already started the ball rolling for 2014 registration and this certainly makes the next few weeks very interesting for schemes and producers alike.

Clarification

The need for clarification from BIS was emphasised by Duncan Simpson, director of sales and marketing at compliance scheme Valpak.

He called for the government to clarify its position, in order to prevent some producers from failing to comply and said: We are aware of the communication to producers. We were not consulted on it in advance but we have known for some time that de minimis is being reviewed as part of the WEEE recast and red tape challenge and support it in principle.

We await the governments formal policy response on this and other aspects of the consultation. As regards the de minimis proposal specifically, we believe that the next step required is for the government and agencies to clarify the legal position for producers and schemes who decide not to register based on this advice, as otherwise they would be in breach of the current regulations.

Another scheme said that some smaller members had already registered for 2014 and there were concerns that these businesses could even ask for their money back.