The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) is seeking views on proposals for the waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) compliance fee and which, if any, should be adopted for the 2015 compliance period.
In July 2015, BIS invited stakeholders to submit proposals for how the compliance fee should work. BIS has now published the three proposals submitted and is asking for views from producers, AATFs, recyclers, local authorities and compliance schemes.
The revised WEEE regulations, which came into force in January 2014, set out a system of household WEEE collection targets for producer compliance schemes. As part of these revised regulations, WEEE compliance schemes can now pay a compliance fee to meet the cost of its members’ obligations should it fail to meet collection targets.
The fee is intended to act as an incentive to compliance schemes to reach their collection targets without having to buy evidence from other schemes which may have collected more than they need. It is determined after the end of each compliance year, and schemes do not learn how much they are required to pay until each scheme has submitted their final evidence.
The WEEE compliance fee for 2014 involved a sliding scale that set a higher fee for schemes the further they were from their target. This was calculated by taking into account the average cost of transport and treatment for each waste stream. One of the proposals for 2015, submitted jointly by a group of compliance schemes, is based on this same ‘escalator’ principle.
Clarity Environmental was pleased that it did not have to rely on the compliance fee for the 2014 period. Vikkie Fitzgerald, Project Manager of our Recycle with Clarity initiative said:
“Thanks to the success of our ‘Recycle with Clarity’ network, we did not have to rely on the compliance fee to ensure we complied for the 2014 period. Not only were we able to meet our targets, but we also attracted more producers into our scheme for 2015. The success of our scheme continues and we once again hope to not need the fee this year. We will, however, be reviewing the proposals and offering feedback where appropriate. We encourage our partners and compliance scheme members to do the same.”
View the proposals for the compliance fee and complete a response form on the gov.uk website.
