treated, I believe this is essential because we really want to support collection facilities to be leading edge. The UK leads the way in
It is vital that everyone in the
chain,
from consumer to retailer and reprocessor, understands their obligations and opportunities under the WEEE regulations. We need to ensure that a piece of unwanted, but working, kitchen equipment is reused where possible, taken to a council-run recycling centre, specialist charity shop, such as some run by BHF or the Salvation Army, or put on Freecycle. I have seen some innovative marketing campaigns, offering people a money off voucher, inserted into the packaging of their new purchase, if they post off their unwanted electricals.
When at a meeting with DHL recently, getting an update on their Love your electricals campaign work, I chatted to Andy Currie from DHL and he said; “The WRAP toolkit provided invaluable support and guidance for DHL to run successful ‘Give and take’ events during Recycle Week 2010, as a result 422 donated electrical items were diverted from landfill.”
WRAP’s WEEE toolkit supports retailers by helping them meet and go beyond the information requirements of the Regulations. Resources that can be easily adapted to fit with the retailers own brand but are recognised as being legally compliant provide maximum flexibility. We launched the toolkit on the Summer of 2010, it has already been taken up by major retailer Argos and we anticipate some other key retailers to be on board before the end of the year.
At the same time we released good practice guidance to improve quality and quantity of WEEE collected and
|114| ENVIRONMENT INDUSTRY MAGAZINE
design developments and innovations so I believe we should strive for the same at end of life.
It does concern me that a phone or hairdryer may be ‘old and unusable’ to a business or consumer and, may end up in landfill when it still may have several reuse options.
Reuse of unwanted electricals offers a real opportunity to increase the lifetime of a product. Consumers, however, need to know they are purchasing products of a specific quality. As a result, a new reuse standard PAS141 [specification for the processing for reuse of waste and used electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE and UEEE)] is being developed. The aim is to ensure effective and proper reuse, it will be operational in 2011 and help highlight compliant and effective reuse operations.
So I hope you will agree there is a great deal of help for businesses, local authorities and consumers to do the right thing. That help comes from a variety of sources including: WRAP, the Environment Agency, NetRegs, retailers (e.g. through take-back schemes and advice to consumers) and others, such as the compliance schemes. Going forward I am confident that this will only continue.
The recast of the WEEE directive will look at the collection target for WEEE, currently set at 4kg per head per year. The recast may increase collection targets for WEEE but what the target will be is unknown at the moment. With this in mind we are working on a mass balance model that maps out the flow of EEE and WEEE through the UK system so that we can identify where the opportunities lie to increase the capture of WEEE for
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152