HP report questions WEEE evidence charges

09 FEBRUARY 2012

The UK WEEE Regulations applies producer responsibility through a market share system. Unlike most other EU Member States where producers have control over the collection of WEEE, UK producers are in the hands of compliance schemes who make arrangements with local authorities for the collection of household WEEE on their behalf. A liberal interpretation of the Regulations has enabled a number of schemes to over collect way beyond their own needs, knowing that someone else will have to buy the surplus evidence to meet their shortfalls. With every tonne of evidence having to be purchased by someone, it has lead to some extremely high prices. 

Hewlett Packard recently commissioned a report to look into the market and analyse the difference between the actual costs associated with household WEEE and the charges that are made to producers for their share of the evidence. The report identified that although the value of WEEE has climbed steadily over the last 4 years, it has had little effect on the price of evidence. Overall, the report concludes, the costs of collecting and treating WEEE are broadly in balance with the gate value of WEEE at AATFs. However, evidence charges are still average well over £100/tonne across the categories.

Much of this 'profit' is extracted by the waste management companies that operate local authority WEEE collection points and the compliance schemes with the surplus evidence. With the recently announced revised WEEE targets, there are fears that producers in the UK will be hit even harder and it is thought that the Government is now looking closely at this issue to try to bring it under control.

The report is available here.