WEEE schemes positive over 2008 compliance

Speaking to letsrecycle.com, three of the largest schemes in the WEEE system said they were confident they had achieved compliance for 2008. – following Valpak's announcement last week that it believed it had complied (see letsrecycle.com story).

And, REPIC – which was among the schemes that had to secure evidence at the last minute to achieve compliance for 2007 – also confirmed that it was set to submit its declaration of compliance to the Environment Agency before close of play today.

In general, schemes were positive about the evidence trading that has taken place over the course of the 2008 compliance period – and in particular since they discovered their final obligations on May 1 (see letsrecycle.com story).

Compliance

Scott Butler, UK general manager for pan-European compliance scheme ERP, said: “We've submitted our Declaration of Compliance now; we have secured the evidence we needed.”

He described the process of achieving this as having been “smoother” than for 2007, explaining that “we invested a lot of time in making it work” and that “schemes are a bit clearer about how they work together”.

His comments were echoed by Edward Cooke of WeeeLink, who said: “We have found all the schemes we have dealt with have been absolutely excellent about everything.”

And, he added that both local authorities' and producers' understanding of the system had also improved over the past 12 months.

Meanwhile, Paul James, the general manager of DHL's WEEE compliance scheme explained that: “It's gone fine, we've balanced our books without too many problems, and we work sensibly with other schemes.”

Commenting on the evidence trading that had taken place, Mr James said: “We've found we have needed to do more trades this year, but we haven't found it a difficult process although it is quite time-consuming.

He added: “There are still people in the marketplace looking to charge excessive amounts for evidence, but we haven't had to deal with them.”

REPIC, which is currently seeking a judicial review of the WEEE system after claiming that it faced “ransom” prices for evidence when seeking to fulfil its obligations for the 2007 compliance period (see letsrecycle.com story), has said that it expects to submit its declaration of compliance before today's deadline expires.

The scheme's chief executive, Dr Phillip Morton, said: “I can confirm that REPIC will submit its declaration of compliance to the Environment Agency on time as required by the Regulations.

“The Environment Agency will in due course advise all PCSs about the status of their compliance,” he added.

REPIC is expected to have face some real challenges in balancing its purchase of evidence with its obligation, especially in evidence for items such as televisions and it is expected that evidence trading will have been strong over the weekend.

Excess evidence

It is understood that schemes have been told by the Environment Agency that it does not expect them to hold any excess evidence after their Declaration of Compliance has been submitted.

Schemes are also believed to have been told that traded evidence will only count as being 'held' if the trade is complete, and therefore accepted by the receiving scheme, and not classed as 'pending' or 'submitted'.

However, it is unclear what action, if any, will be taken against schemes if they do still have a surplus of evidence when they submit their final declaration, or if all their evidence is not classed as 'held' in this way.

In theory, for the WEEE system to balance, there should be no schemes with a shortfall or excess of evidence.

Prices

With regard to the prices paid for evidence during the 2008 compliance period, schemes have revealed that by and large they were largely similar to the 2007 period.

One scheme said: “I think they're much the same as 2007, in 2008 we saw a massive peak for value of scrap in the summer then a massive collapse, so much the same.”

Another agreed, explaining that, despite “peaks and troughs” over the course of the year, “overall it evens out – we have found prices are quite similar to the year before.”

It is believed that evidence prices for WEEE have included about £2,000 a tonne for lamps – which are generally seen as scarce, £275 per tonne for TVs, £180-200 per tonne for fridges, and between £130-180 a tonne for categories 2-10 – also known as 'mixed WEEE'.

Large domestic appliances are currently believed to be worth around £10-20 per tonne, though industry experts explained that, while the evidence would always have a value due to transport costs, it was “very heavily dependent on the scrap price”.

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RWF 2009 

In London next week, the annual letsrecycle.com Forum will be holding a session looking at the latest developments in legislation and recycling of waste electrical and electronic equipment. The WEEE and Batteries event will be held on June 10 at a conference centre within the ExCeL exhibition centre during the CIWM Futureresource event.

The WEEE and Batteries session will be covering a range of issues with keynote speaker Steve Andrews of the Environmental & Technical Regulation Directorate at the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform looking at the EC review of the WEEE Directive. Among the issues he will be examining are:

• Extension of producer responsibility for collection
• Changes to the registration requirements
• Introduction of minimum monitoring requirements for the shipment of WEEE outside EU

Senior Environment Agency official Bob Mead will be talking about Implementing the Batteries Regulations and there will also be presentations from Valpak, Wastepack and environCom.

To reserve a place, please call Rebecca Denney on 020 7633 4520 or emailrebecca.d@environmentmedia.co.uk or visit the RWF website for more details.