The Joint Trade Association (JTA), a grouping of nine trade associations from the electrotechnical sector, has submitted a proposal to the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) to operate a waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) compliance fee mechanism for 2015.

Each year, under the revised Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Regulations BIS seeks proposals for compliance schemes methodologies to determine the compliance fee for producer compliance schemes (PCSs).

Under the law, PCSs that fail to achieve collection targets may choose to pay a compliance fee in order to meet the cost of financing obligations. This is designed to discourage some PCSs from collecting WEEE ‘significantly above their targets’ and then ‘seeking to sell that surplus at excessive prices to those PCSs that are short of their target amount’.

Each year one mechanism and one administrator is chosen by BIS, based on factors including the method’s likelihood to encourage schemes to meet collection targets, economic analysis of the method, costs of administration and the timescale for the methods implementation.

Last year, BIS chose the methodology proposed by the JTA for the 2014 compliance period. The JTA says that the process ‘provided a professionally managed method for WEEE schemes to meet collection targets’ and resulted in £375,000 being made available to local authority WEEE projects.

Details for the mechanism proposed for 2015 have not been released, but JTA says that it is based on the 2014 model but has ‘a few further enhancements’.

In 2014, the mechanism used different compliance schemes for each WEEE stream, with fees based on the average direct cost of transport and treatment for each stream and a requirement for only PCSs needing to pay a fee to supply cost data – as opposed to mandating all PCSs to provide it.

The JTA comprises AMDEA, BEAMA, BTHA, EEF, GAMBICA, LIA, PETMA, SEAMA and techUK. In addition, three PCSs contribute to the work of the JTA. It estimates that combined its membership accounts for approximately 90 per cent of the WEEE producer obligation in the UK.

Compliance fee ‘a vital element of the UK WEEE system’

Commenting on the announcement, Richard Hughes, Chairman of the JTA and Technical Manager at the Association of Manufacturers of Domestic Appliances, said: “The compliance fee is a vital element of the UK’s WEEE system. It ensures that where a PCS has not fully met its target through collections during the compliance period, it has a legitimate alternative route to compliance. This has helped to deliver an estimated £18 million of savings from the UK WEEE System, supporting the Government’s agenda to cut business red tape.

“We are delighted to submit a Compliance Fee proposal for 2015. The JTA has a successful track record of operating the Compliance Fee, and managing the fees received.

“Our proposal includes a reliable, tried and tested methodology built by a leading economic consultancy. It is also supported by further independent economic analysis to validate the approach.

“Our submission incorporates an independent administrator which is a UK top 10 accountancy firm with extensive relevant experience of the UK WEEE market. It provides the infrastructure, resources and processes to deliver the operational requirements for the 2015 Compliance Fee mechanism.”

Read more about the WEEE compliance fee.