WEEE Directive

I intend to follow that, but first, in the traditional way, I congratulate the hon. Member for Southport (Dr. Pugh) on securing the debate. I welcome the opportunity to expand on how we are implementing the unfortunately known WEEE directive in the United Kingdom. It is an important piece of environmental legislation that is intended to address in a practical and environmentally effective manner the increasing levels of waste electrical and electronic equipment here in the UK and across the European Union. The directive comes at a good time, because more and more of our constituents are busy recycling bottles of lemonade, plastics, paper and so on when they can. Many people will welcome opportunities to recycle the vast amount of electrical equipment that they have in their homes. As hon. Members detailed their electrical experiences and electronic behaviour, I thought, ““Who needs the Freedom of Information Act when hon. Members are so willing to tell us about their experiences?”” The hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans), as has been noted, rather movingly told us about his desperate childhood in the valleys without a mobile phone and being forced to experience the Grundig V2000. I shall not try to compete with that in the normal way by saying that in my day we would just gather round the piano singing ““Hound Dog”” and ““Are You Lonesome Tonight?””, because we have had quite enough of that already. To put the matter in context, as hon. Members already have, we estimate that about 2 million tonnes of electrical and electronic waste were generated in the UK last year, and that is probably the case every year. One of my colleagues calculated that that is enough to fill the new Wembley stadium up to six times over, which probably accounts for the delay in the construction of Wembley stadium. I hope that the Select Committee is considering that fact. At an individual level, we calculate that each UK citizen will generate 3.3 tonnes of electrical waste during their lifetime. The hon. Member for Southport reminded us of the trend to have so much electronic gadgetry. The UK system is designed to ensure that waste is not dumped in landfill to damage the environment for current and future generations but separately collected, treated and recycled. The UK implementation of the regulations came fully into force on 1 July and I am pleased by the response that producers, distributors, retailers, local authorities, re-use organisations and the waste treatment and recycling industries have made in working together to deliver an effective system. We admit that the system has been difficult to put in place and is coming in later than we had intended, but I assure hon. Members that the European Union is now very pleased with the way in which we are implementing the directive. I wish to say something about producers, Mr. Wilshire, and I welcome you to the Chair in this important debate.