An All-Party Parliamentary Sustainable Resource Group (APSRG) event considering the effects of the recast Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment (WEEE) Directive took place at the Houses of Parliament earlier in the week (17 March).

Hosted by REPIC, the UK’s largest producer compliance scheme for the collection and recycling of WEEE, the roundtable event aimed to celebrate a year since the recast WEEE Directive was implemented via the WEEE Regulations 2013.

With experts and stakeholders in the WEEE market in attendance, the panel shared their thoughts on how the new regulations have affected their business since the government’s new system was launched. The speakers presented views from differing stakeholder perspectives – a producer, a treatment facility and a government representative.

Chaired by Huddersfield MP Barry Sheerman, the event speakers included: Dr Philip Morton, Chief Executive of REPIC; Simon Eves, Environmental Affairs Manager at Panasonic UK; Graeme Carus, Business Development Director at European Metal Recycling; and Stuart Edwards, Head of Materials and Resource Industries at the Department of Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS).

Reflecting on ‘a year of change’

The new WEEE Regulations, which came into force from the 1st January 2014, sought to improve the old system by introducing three key changes: implementing a known tonnage target for WEEE collections; getting rid of evidence notes that producer compliance schemes could trade between themselves; and introducing a compliance fee as a legitimate alternative method of compliance in the event that a producer scheme, for any reason, falls short of its target.

Welcoming guests to the ‘One year on’ event, Sheerman noted that the recast regulations “couldn’t have been worse than the original”, and the speakers appeared to agree that the country’s WEEE collection and recycling system has been vastly improved by the new approach, while signifying that there is still room for improvement.

Morton commented: “The first year of the new regulations has generally worked very well – a point which was echoed by the rest of the panel. There is now a clear audit trail for WEEE, the ability to influence the quality of WEEE treatment and there has been a large price correction in the market, identified in a recent press release by Matthew Hancock, MP Minister for Business Enterprise and Energy at BIS as an £18 million saving, so that the costs that producers now pay are more reflective of the true costs of containers, transport, treatment, recycling and recovery of WEEE.

“It is important for everybody involved in the UK WEEE system to maintain clear channels of communication, so we know what is working and what isn’t. The roundtable was a great way to mark the end of the first year, as we heard from all sides of the debate. We have seen some great changes this year and as we enter a new compliance year, there will be plenty of opportunity to develop the system further. We will look in particular at suggestions around any increased administration burden for the reporting systems, as well as how we can help alleviate pressures at the end of the evidence trading year.”

Still ‘much to improve’

Echoing Morton’s thoughts to some extent, the BIS representative Stuart Edwards said that the new regulations have “certainly delivered some positive results” already, such as meeting the overall 2014 target and saving £18 million for producers. He conceded, though, that there was “much to improve” in the system, highlighting the need to reduce administrative burden on transfer facilities and generally preventing the “clear leakages” that BIS sees in the country’s resource use: “The challenge is to ensure we have a strategy to keep materials in the UK economy”, he said.

Eves added that BIS would soon be announcing 2015 targets for WEEE recycling, which are based on the amount of EEE placed on the market in 2014.

Vital to ‘work together’

Summing up, Sheerman said: “I’m delighted that the APSRG has organised this event with REPIC, looking at the UK’s new WEEE system. Every year householders and companies in the UK discard an estimated one million tonnes, possibly more, of WEEE items, and it is vital that we make sure these products are recovered, reused, remanufactured and recycled.

“In light of increasing concerns around resource scarcity and security, and the fragility of our environment, it is vital that both the waste and resources industry and the manufacturing industry continue to work together to make sure that legislation such as the WEEE Directive are implemented effectively and reviewed continuously.”

Find out more about the 2013 WEEE Regulations or the new WEEE compliance fee mechanism.