Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (Waste Management Licensing) (England and Wales) Regulations 2006

My Lords, this has been a short but interesting debate on a difficult issue. The difficulties have been eloquently expressed by noble Lords who contributed to the debate. In the few minutes that I take to respond, I hope to answer and touch on many of the matters raised, but if I fail to do that, I will write. I listened with great care to the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke. I have to leave aside the noble Lord’s views on Brussels, but the Government’s view is that this is important environmental legislation that seeks to address in a practical and environmentally effective manner the increasing levels of waste electrical and electronic equipment—I refuse to use the acronym WEEE—within the European Union. The noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, quoted a figure of 1.8 million tonnes and the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, gave graphic examples of what is being thrown away. Government figures are that last year 2 million tonnes of waste of this kind were generated in the UK. That figure is absolutely enormous, and imaginative and brilliant solutions are needed to solve the problem. The regulations place obligations on all producers of electrical and electronic equipment to finance the costs of the waste management of the products they place on the UK market. The range of products covered by the regulations is extensive and runs to a full foolscap page in one of the documents. It includes washing machines, mobile phones and all sort of things, including specialist equipment such as ventilators, dialysis machines and, in some cases, laboratory measuring equipment. We had extensive consultations, and the business community as a whole supports the aims of the regulations and the need to limit the environmental impact of their products when they reach their end of life. As of this morning, the environmental agencies have received 37 applications from prospective compliance schemes that will help producers to meet their obligations. That is a real demonstration of the commitment within the producer community. In drawing up the regulations it was agreed, following consultation with interested organisations and their representatives—I say to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, that I managed to remove all references to ““stakeholders”” in my final speech, so they will be ““interested organisations”” rather than ““stakeholders””— that the Government should bring forward separate regulations that cover the main obligations and necessary infrastructure and separate regulations in relation to the treatment requirements, which are focused on the waste management and treatment sector. There are three sets of permitting regulations, which amend the existing waste treatment licensing regimes in England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The main WEEE regulations—SI 3289—aim to introduce producer responsibility in a practical and cost-effective manner for producers and distributors in the UK. Although the bulk of the obligations rest with the producers of electrical and electronic equipment, the distributors of such equipment also have obligations. When a replacement item of EEE is purchased, distributors must provide facilities for consumers to return their equipment when it reaches the end of its life. That can be done in one of two ways. They can either offer services to take back the equipment on to their premises when a replacement piece of equipment is purchased, or they can join the Distributor Take-back Scheme, which will help them discharge their obligations. Distributors have offered funding of £10 million, via the Distributor Take-back Scheme, to local authorities for the use of their sites and to finance any upgrading, signage and so on, which may be needed. The WEEE regulations place no new direct obligations on local authorities regarding waste collection; for example, current arrangements for bulky waste collections from households will be unaffected. However, local authorities are obligated under other waste management regulations to accept from households all types of household waste, including waste electrical and electronic equipment. Under the range of regulations they are also required to arrange the environmentally sound disposal of any such waste. They are not, however, obligated to separately collect WEEE or arrange the treatment in line with the targets within the WEEE regulations. The involvement of local authorities will help to establish the robust infrastructure needed to produce an efficient and effective system under the regulations. By working with the Distributor Take-back Scheme, local authorities will be able to reduce their financial obligations under other waste management regulations. For example, producer compliance schemes will provide all containers for the separate collection of WEEE; producer compliance schemes will finance the collection, treatment and reprocessing of all separately collected household WEEE; local authorities may be able to count the recycling of WEEE deposited at their sites and collected by producer compliance schemes towards their recycling targets; and, by reducing the amount of waste sent to landfill, they will be able to reduce their landfill costs. In view of these benefits, we are absolutely confident that the vast majority of local authorities will wish to sign up their civic amenity sites as designated collection facilities. As noble Lords have noted, the implementation of the directive in the UK has not been without its problems. The evidence given to the Merits Committee, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, was straightforward, upfront and clear. Civil servants should be congratulated on that. While we are confident that the requirements for collective responsibility of waste can be fully implemented, Article 8.2 of the directive introduces the principle, which we have heard about, of individual producer responsibility—IPR—which provides for each producer to be responsible for financing the cost of waste from their own products placed on the market after 13 August 2005. The Government fully support the concept of IPR in principle; we have, for example, implemented the End-of-Life Vehicles Directive on the basis of own-marque responsibility for vehicle manufacturers. We have, however, taken the view that IPR for WEEE is neither technically feasible nor economically viable at present. It would require systems to be in place to allow for the identification of each producer’s own waste products. Such systems have not been introduced in any other member state, and the European Commission is well aware of the difficulties being experienced in implementing that requirement. However, the regulations before us require all producer-compliance schemes to put forward, by the end of 2007, their suggestions and ideas for how IPR can be achieved. In addition, the DTI will be working with producers to develop a process for sharing good practice to help in developing an effective solution. The main costs of implementing the WEEE regulations are the separate collection, treatment and recycling of WEEE required under the directive. The DTI’s regulatory impact assessment estimates annualised costs in the region of £200 million to £300 million, but this estimate assumes that virtually all WEEE arising in the UK will be separately collected. However, we anticipate that these costs will fall over time as new treatment technologies develop and as recycling markets for materials deriving from WEEE grow. The UK’s WEEE regulations implement the WEEE directive with as light a regulatory touch as possible, allowing a competitive market to develop in which producers can discharge their responsibilities under the directive. It is regrettable that delay in implementing the regulations has resulted in the UK missing the Commission’s deadline for transposition and implementation. As we know, the Commission has commenced infraction proceedings as a result, and judgment is expected shortly. The diverse nature of the business community directly affected by the regulations resulted in the identification of a range of difficulties as the directive was transposed into UK law. The complexity of the base directive added to these difficulties in transposition and implementation. But, as I said, we are not alone in those difficulties. The majority of member states have had difficulties. Of the 24 member states, 18 were not able to complete transposition within the directive’s timescale and 13 of those were unable to meet the implementation deadline. One member state is still to transpose and implement. In the process of developing the implementation policy, the Government recognised the importance of engaging with producers, distributors, local authorities and the waste management sector to develop the necessary infrastructure behind the regulations to provide an effective WEEE system in the UK. We are confident that the regulations will not only result in a robust infrastructure for the handling of WEEE but represent practical solutions to the issues faced. I shall quickly deal with some of the questions raised by noble Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, was very interested in light bulbs and asked why ordinary light bulbs were not covered by the directive. The directive focuses on bulbs that contain hazardous materials. That is seen as a priority. It is entirely possible that the directive may cover filament bulbs in future. The UK will discuss that with the Commission during the review. The noble Lord also asked when the guidance would be issued. It is being finalised now and, he will be happy to hear, it will be available by the end of the month. He asks whether this is a major step forward. We feel that it is, as under WEEE regulations, WEEE will be taken out of the municipal waste stream and treated in an environmentally sound way. At the moment, it goes straight into landfill untreated, causing environmental damage. Importantly, the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, also wants to know what the UK is doing to review regulations. The European Commission review starts in 2008, and the UK will participate fully. The UK will monitor the situation in the UK very closely. The first full year of the review will be 2008, and 2009 will be the earliest that we can look at the WEEE system. The noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, asked some very interesting questions. I do not have the answers to all of them, but I found extremely interesting the question about the digital switchover and the number of televisions that will go into recycling as a result. Not all existing TVs will be made redundant by the digital switchover. Those that are will be disposed of in the UK system, which has adequate capacity to deal effectively with television sets and radios. As I said, I am very grateful to everyone for contributing to this short debate. I am aware that a number of questions asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, have not been answered, and I undertake to answer them as quickly as possible.