Individual WEEE producer responsibility considered

15 December 2011

Vince Cable, Business Secretary has said he will take a ‘long, hard look’ at how a system for greater individual producer responsibility for recycling WEEE could be introduced in the UK.

Through the existing WEEE system, producers of electrical and electronic equipment are collectively obligated to pay towards the cost of collecting and recycling of these goods become waste. Producers are not responsible for recycling their own products which means they currently have no incentive to design their products to make them to last longer or make them easier to recycle.

The above issue was highlighted in a Green Alliance report published in October entitled ‘Reinventing the wheel: a circular economy for resource security’ – the idea of the report was to identify that producers need to improve product design.

And, speaking at a Green Alliance event yesterday (November 12) Mr Cable said that his department wanted to improve the situation.

He said: “It is one of my department’s many responsibilities to implement the regulations required for the WEEE directive. They have real economic as well as environmental value, helping to support innovation, growth, investment and jobs. Everyone has a role to play – consumers, business-end users, manufacturers of products, recyclers, local authorities and waste management companies.

“But the Green Alliance report argues that the collective nature of the scheme dilutes the incentive for better design. Such design could help reduce our reliance on difficult-to-mine rare earths.

“We want to improve that. After the negotiations on the revision to the WEEE Directive are concluded, we mean to take a hard look at how a system of greater individual producer responsibility might be introduced to make it better for industry and environment.”