International Review of Waste Management Policy - Department of ...

20.2.1.8 UK
The UK regulations on WEEE came into force in January 2007. Obligated companies
must register with an approved producer compliance scheme (PCS), which submits
WEEE data to the Environment Agency on behalf of its clients and provides logistic
solutions to fulfil collection and recycling obligations. Over 4,000 producers have now
joined one of the 40 producer compliance schemes in the UK (figures from BERR).
There is a network of designated collection facilities (DCFs) that accept WEEE from
UK households free of charge; this network received financial support from retailers
via a distributor take-back scheme which Valpak has been appointed to manage. All
local authority civic amenity sites are designated DCFs. It should be noted that the
level of support that the local authority civic amenity sites receive from Valpak was
one of a number of major hurdles which slowed the implementation of the UK
regulations. Distributors of EEE must accept similar WEEE on a 1:1 basis.
Treatment via accredited treatment facilities is also funded via PCSs. Originally a
national allocation centre was meant to be set up to allocate designated collection
facilities to PCSs, but this has since broken down, and PCSs now seek their own
collection facilities. B2B is managed in similar fashion, but there is no distributor
take-back scheme; most items should be collected free of charge by PCSs and sent to
treatment facilities via funding from obligated companies. However in reality, despite
the B2B arrangements, a large number of companies within the UK are not calling
upon the producer to collect their WEEE, rather they are just paying to have mixed
loads taken off their hands.
20.3 Key Organisations Involved in Implementation and
Management
For the majority of countries listed in Section 20.2.1, varying degrees of both physical
(infrastructure set-up) and financial responsibility exist between the producer,
distributor and municipality. Combinations of responsibility are illustrated in Table
20-1 for countries within the EU. The producer is named as financially responsible for
the WEEE from “at least” collection-point onwards in the WEEE Directive; this leaves it
open as to the extent to which responsibility for collection itself might rest with the
municipality, the distributor or producer. There is clearly a need to finance the
containers, storage space and collection-system required to collect WEEE from
households. In countries such as Sweden and Finland, the producer is financially
responsible for all aspects of WEEE collection, whereas in Germany the municipality
takes on some of this financial responsibility and in Belgium, any additional financial
responsibility rests with the distributor.
Various combinations of physical responsibility also exist, with Germany again placing
a greater degree of this responsibility on the municipality compared to countries such
as Finland and Sweden, which require the producer and distributor to have greater
responsibility for the set-up of WEEE collection infrastructure.
In addition to the producer, distributor and municipality, various organisations provide
both re-use and recycling support to WEEE policies. A number of organisations such
as the previously mentioned EAR foundation in Germany and El Kretsen in Sweden
facilitate collective responsibility for the recovery and disposal of WEEE in these
countries. Furthermore, a number of organisations focus specifically on the re-use of
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