So Tempted Over WEEE

I was SO tempted to roll out the WTA, but I managed to resist it.

This is a copy of an email sent to the editor of ERT this afternoon in response to the article, “Loophole may squeeze top recycling schemes”.

kwatt wrote:Hi Penny,

Hope you’re well as it’s been awhile since we spoke.

ERT dropped through my letterbox this morning and on thumbing through it I came across the article on the WEEE Directive accused of being derailed by “speculators” that you wrote.

Well, the schemes only have one group to blame, themselves.

They pushed for it to be done this way stating, quite clearly, that IPR (Individual Producer Responsibility) was not possible which would have made each producer responsible for their own waste. But that would have hit those that have short life cycles, so the high volume/short lifespan producers would have had to pay more.

Conversely, those that produce repairable long life products which are actually far more environmentally friendly would have benefitted from this. Quite rightly so in my opinion.

And, due to the fact that better appliances are usually heavier those that produce quality products like ourselves, Miele, BSH and others have to pick up the tab for those that produce light, throw-away appliances. You can scrap, by weight, almost one and a half to two Indesits for every ISE or Miele machine.

But they chose to do this by weight and they chose to do it by market volume, we all just had to put up with it and if selling the evidence is how we recoup the cost then so be it. You can rest assured that, had the shoe been on the other foot, no mercy would have been shown and the major schemes would have not uttered a peep as they would have been making money selling evidence to small producers. Just because things don’t go their way the teddies get ejected.

Also, from the repairers point of view, the tactics that we have witnessed in the repair industry of overpricing on spares and premature BER (Beyond Economical Repair) is coming back to haunt many producers. I can’t say that I, or any of the other repairers will shed a tear over the large volume, cheap product producers having to fork out what they should for the waste that they produce through this practice.

In fact, as repairers, it’s great. Perhaps it will make some of the manufacturers seriously think about their spares and servicing policies.

Perhaps if the members had thought about this at the outset this problem would not have existed today and, the best thing that they can do now is work towards instigating IPR as soon as possible to reduce their costs.

Regards

Kenneth Watt

John and I got a bit upset when we read that the manufacturer’s WEEE scheme was complaining that they might actually have to pay to dispose of their rubbish. But, never one to miss an opportunity to get the message out, they got the above.

K.