Item No.
4
Waste Management Panel
Thursday 20 October 2005
Report
The Hazardous Waste Regulations 2005 and the EC Directives on Waste
Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) and the Restriction of the
Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic
Equipment (RoHS)
Report of Director of Environment
Author: Michael Shaw 01992 556164
Executive Member: Stuart Pile
1. Purpose of Report
To inform Members of the Waste Management Panel of the actions taken
to deal with the obligations placed on the County Council by the recently
enacted Hazardous Waste Regulations 2005 and the implications for the
County Council of the EC Directives on Waste Electrical and Electronic
Equipment and the Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous
Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment.
2. Background
2.1 On 16 July 2005 the Hazardous Waste Regulations 2005 came into
force. The Regulations mean that stringent conditions now apply to
the transport, storage and disposal of a wide range of items, including
many which are in everyday use in the home such as televisions and
computer monitors. These items are now classified as hazardous
when requiring disposal.
2.2 The County Council already had in place arrangements for collection
and disposal of a number of materials and items, previously classified
as special wastes and now reclassified under the new Regulations as
hazardous wastes, but has had to make additional arrangements, at
short notice, to collect, store, transport and dispose of televisions and
computer monitors at a specialist site. Initial estimates are that the
County Council will have to arrange such special disposal for some
80,000 + units per annum. The resource implications of this are being
assessed and Central Government, after being pressed by the Local
Government Association and others, appears to have acknowledged
that this is a new burden for which additional resources will be
allocated.
2.3 The burden of putting in place these additional arrangements should
have been reduced by the implementation of the Waste Electrical and
Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive and the Restriction of the Use
of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic
Equipment (RoHS) Directive. Together the Directives aim to minimise
the impacts of electrical and electronic equipment on the environment
both during their life and when they become waste. The WEEE
Directive in particular sets criteria for the collection, treatment,
recycling and recovery of waste electrical and electronic equipment
and makes manufacturers and retailers responsible for financing most
of these activities (producer responsibility). Private householders are
to be able to return waste electrical and electronic equipment to the
manufacturer or retailer without charge. Unfortunately producer
responsibility, which was supposed to be implemented in August 2004
was, initially, delayed until January 2006 and has recently been
further delayed until June 2006. This delay means that the County
Council must continue to arrange for, and fund, the collection and
disposal of all the material covered by the WEEE Directive, including
those items now classified as hazardous.
3. Current and Recent Activity
3.1 Implementation of producer responsibility under the WEEE Directive
originally focused on free in-store take back, which still remains an
option, but the British Retail Consortium (BRC) has proposed an
alternative which they say has received the “green light” from the
Government. Under the proposal, consumers will be able to deposit
WEEE at an approved designated collection point at their local
household waste recycling centre which would become a Designated
Collection Facility (DCF). Producers of electrical and electronic
equipment (or their agents) will then collect the WEEE from the
centres and remove it for recycling. The BRC claim that independent
analysis has confirmed the cost of upgrading the 1,074 household
waste recycling centres around the UK will be £8.2 million over 3
years (£6,000 per site in the first year).
3.2 The BRC’s Retail Compliance Scheme proposes that retailers put
money into a central pot which will be used to upgrade household
waste recycling centres so they are better prepared to accept WEEE,
and can become a DCF. The BRC claim that "the scheme offers clear
benefits to consumers and retailers. It also provides producers with
opportunities to develop low-cost collection and processing systems.
It is a win for all and we encourage every retailer to join up." The
scheme has, however, been widely criticised by, amongst others, the
Local Government Association (LGA) principally because it is seen as
passing on producer responsibility to local authorities with no
guarantees that all WEEE will be collected from all recycling centres
and that only very small sums are offered as upgrade costs. There is
also the simple fact that not all household waste recycling centres are
large enough to accommodate additional waste containers.
4. Potential impact of WEEE for Hertfordshire County Council
4.1 There are nineteen household waste recycling centres (HWRC) in
Hertfordshire where, each year, approximately 11,000 tonnes of scrap
metal (the majority of which is electrical items such as washing
machines, cookers, dishwashers, kettles, irons etc.), approximately
40,000 refrigerators and freezers and approximately 80,000
televisions and computer monitors are deposited by householders as
waste.
4.2 There is, nominally, a saving to the County Council in HWRC
operational costs from the collection of scrap metal, a significant
quantity of which is WEEE, because the material is recycled via scrap
metal merchants, and thus not landfilled, and because the income to
the operations contractor from the sale of the material is reflected in
the tendered costs for operating the site. There is also a boost to
recycling rates because all metals collected at the HWRC are fully
recycled.
4.3 There are significant costs to the County Council for the transport and
disposal of hazardous WEEE such as refrigerators, freezers,
televisions and computer monitors.
4.4 If all waste electrical and electronic equipment were collected and
disposed or recycled elsewhere there would be significant savings to
the County Council, simply because responsibility for the collection,
transport and disposal of this part of the waste stream would pass to
others. This saving would be slightly offset by a loss of income to the
HWRC operations contractors from the sale of scrap metal and the
consequent increase in tendered rates for site operation. The major
saving would be in the collection, transport and disposal of hazardous
WEEE which, for the new burden of televisions and monitors is
estimated at £500,000 per annum and for the ‘old’ burden of
refrigerators, freezers and fluorescent tubes is estimated at £550,000
per annum.
4.5 Unfortunately, with the uncertainty surrounding producer responsibility
and with no guidance on whether all WEEE will be collected from all
sites by producers, it is unclear whether any savings can be realised
or, indeed, if the County Council will be faced with additional costs.
Recent research shows that UK households throw away about a
million tonnes (approximately 93 million items) of electrical and
electronic equipment in a year. This is more than twice as much as
previously thought and works out at 16kg per person or four items per
household. Targets for WEEE recovery are, initially, set at 4kg per
person which equates to approximately 4,000 tonnes to be recovered
in Hertfordshire (although there doesn’t appear to be any requirement
for producers to collect from any particular location). Fridges, freezers,
televisions and monitors alone from household sources at existing
levels would account for this quantity in Hertfordshire although there is
no guarantee that producers will collect from Hertfordshire or will pay
for collection and disposal above and beyond this target. There is also
no guarantee that, if the County Council were able to register all
nineteen HWRC as potential DCF, that they would be accepted as
such and that they would qualify for funds to make them suitable for
the collection of WEEE, although, with a single roll on/off 40 yd
capacity container costing in the region of £3,500 and the additional
costs of staffing, leaflets, signage, space (not always available) and
licensing, the £6,000 per site proposed by the BRC would be totally
inadequate. If they were registered as DCF then they may also be
forced to accept non household WEEE from commercial and industrial
sources which could, potentially, overwhelm them.
4.6 There is also the problem of what to do with WEEE that is delivered to
any HWRC not registered as a DCF. Will the County Council have to
refuse to accept items of electrical equipment? Will the County
Council be allowed to collect non hazardous WEEE and recycle it as
at present? Will producers collect all WEEE or stop when they have
met their collection targets?
5. Conclusion
There are currently too many unknowns in how the WEEE Directive,
which is supposed to make producers rather than local authorities
responsible for the collection and disposal of their products, will eventually
be implemented and thus, at this time, the eventual impact of the
legislation on Hertfordshire County Council is unclear. It is highly likely
that, with implementation already delayed by two years, there will be
further delays while the answers to such questions are considered. In the
mean time the County Council has measures in place to deal with the
requirements of legislation already enacted, will continue to monitor the
situation with regard to WEEE and will join others lobbying, via the LGA
and other professional bodies for the situation to be resolved such that the
spirit of the legislation i.e. that the producer of the waste is responsible in
all areas for its take back and disposal is finally enacted.