Whitehall plugs electrical waste

13 December 2006
 
Producers of electrical goods will be required to meet the environmental costs of dealing with the disposal of products after they are no longer functional under new rules published this week.
The Government, following a consultation launched after a timetable for manufacturers was laid out during the summer, has set commitments to introduce practical regulations to implement the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive.
Under the new rules, all companies which import, manufacture and rebrand electrical and electronic equipment will have to finance its treatment, recovery and environmentally-safe disposal.
By 15 March 2007, manufactures will need to join an approved producer compliance scheme to ensure they are able to comply with the Directive from 1 July.
The regulations, announced by the Department of Trade and Industry this week, will also allow consumers to dispose of their electrical waste, free of charge. By next summer, new signage will be in place at council refuse centres, in shops and on new electrical products, to inform them how to do this.
Malcolm Wicks, science minister, said: ‘There is currently no incentive for those producing electrical waste to care about the lifecycle of their products.
‘These regulations will mean they can no longer shirk this responsibility.’ Distributors will have the choice of how to meet their obligations under the Directive by either joining the distributor take-back scheme or offering customers in-store take-back. Also announced this week was the appointment of Valpak Retail WEEE Services as the operator of the distributor take-back scheme – funded by £10M from retailers across the country.
The WEEE Regulations and the final Regulatory Impact Assessment are due to be placed on the DTI website.

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