Collection and recycling of waste electronic and electrical equipment will become the responsibility of manufacturers and retailers from June 2006, the government has announced.
Ministers postponed the implementation of the directive on waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) until June 2006 to allow for greater consultation and preparation.
Government Response: DTI
Department of Trade and Industry minister Malcolm Wicks said: "This directive is about dealing effectively with electrical waste which can be damaging to the environment.
"It is challenging and has required a lot of planning and preparation but our priority is to get this right."
Stakeholder Response: British Retail Consortium
Nigel Smith, BRC director of corporate social responsibility, said: "The BRC welcomes the DTI's decision to delay the implementation date of the WEEE directive until June 2006.
"It is imperative that we get this right the first time round and ensure we have an adequate collection network from day one to effectively comply with the retailers collection obligations.
"Over the coming weeks the BRC will be announcing the operator of the retail WEEE compliance scheme who will take responsibility for retail recruitment and the distribution of funds to local authorities to collect WEEE."
Stakeholder Response: Biffa
A spokesman for Biffa said: "Biffa is intending to operate compliance services in collaboration with EMR, the UK's largest metal recycler.
"We expect to have a fairly large market share of producers wishing to comply through a compliance scheme and we are currently very involved with DTI in trying to develop a practical system for the WEEE regulations to operate under.
"We fully support the delay and think it is now an entirely sensible timescale that will enable things to be put together in a coherent and structured manner, thereby giving all parties who will be affected by WEEE the opportunity to prepare properly.
"There is clearly still a huge amount to do, but whilst we now have the time to do it, we must not be complacent and need to continue the pressure on putting the necessary system and infrastructure in place.
"We feel that key to the effective operation and policing of the regulations will be an effective data management system and we are especially concerned as to how this will be developed given the Environment Agency's recent record with IT on hazardous waste."
Stakeholder Response: Institute of Directors
Geraint Day, head of environment policy at the Institute of Directors, said: "Clearly, nobody wants piles of disused dishwashers, computers and irons lying around to despoil the landscape or endanger health.
"Nevertheless this new piece of complex legislation will place a huge responsibility on businesses of all sorts. This is especially so as it will apply retrospectively - so people will be able to get rid of equipment that is years old. It will also affect large and small businesses, which will have to get to grips with systems to deal with everything from large domestic appliances to pocket torches.
"It may be part of a process of cleaning up the environment, but the fact that the introduction of this European Directive has been delayed shows the complexities that public officials have had to deal with. It that is so, spare a thought for the small corner shop which will have to implement this, along with many thousands of enterprises. There must still be concerns about the advice that will be available to businesses and consumers when the scheme kicks off.
"The whole process also illustrates some of the difficulties with bringing in new many of the EU's regulations. Many will have taken years to even formulate and agree. By the time they are due to come into effect many of the public officials involved will have changed. Remember the 'fridge fiasco' a while back, when a lot of local councils were totally unprepared for the introduction of new EU rules. Let's hope we don't see the same sort of thing happening again."
