Producer organisation calls for WEEE "pre-approval" process

Electronics industry organisation REPIC has expressed concern over the "compressed" timetable for forthcoming new recycling regulations, due to hit in July next year.

The government is currently consulting over the new regulations, which will make electronics producer and retailers pay for the collection and recycling of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE).

But such is the task expected to register the producers, the Recycling Electrical Producers Industry Consortium today called for the process to begin even before the regulations are laid before Parliament in December.

Dr Phil Morton, REPIC's chief executive, suggested to letsrecycle.com that some form of "pre-approval" process could be started for producer compliance scheme.

He said: "The Agency could introduce a period of pre-approval – there would be nothing wrong with that. They say okay, you have approval, but subject to the publication of the regulations. It would get a lot of the spade work out of the way.

"It would also give them a chance to address the keys issues in a scheme, giving us the time to smooth them out. If you want to achieve the July date, the timescale needs to be a little more practical," he added.

Timetable
Under the current timetable set out by the Department of Trade and Industry, the Agency is to approve compliance schemes by February 28, but the deadline for compliance schemes to register their producer members is March 15.

Information on the amount of electronics placed on the market by those producers must be submitted by the end of March, so that recycling obligations can be calculated.

"No producer is going to want to sign up until a scheme has full approval, so we will have two weeks to register, then just two weeks after that we have to provide market data," said Dr Morton, whose organisation represents mainly white goods producers.

He added that compliance schemes would not be the only organisations troubled by the deadline, pointing out: "The Agency only has a month to approve the compliance schemes, what happens if we get 100 schemes applying?"

Original text is here