Cast away culture to be binned

THEY are the miracles of modern technology that make our home lives easier and more fun, somehow get cheaper every year and are thrown away without a backwards glance when their useful life is over.

But Brussels is about to end our “˜easy come, easy go’ consumer culture with tough new rules on the recycling of all electrical and electronic items from dishwashers to mobile phones.

The regulations are set to add up to £65 to the price of a new PC and outlaw the binning of everything from a washing machine to a pocket calculator.

Instead, consumers will have to arrange for their local council to recycle the item for the valuable metals it contains. After that, local authorities will bill the manufacturer for the cost of recycling.

Almost inevitably, the cost of this environmentally friendly but bureaucratic process will be passed on to the consumer.

Under the new regulations, which will become law by next August and which must come into effect by the end of 2006 at the latest, makers and importers of all electrical goods must pay for the disposal of their products when the products are no longer of any use to them.

The rules will mean that when any item which uses electricity – whether mains or battery-powered – is no longer needed, the consumer will call the local council or an environmental hotline for advice.

Depending on the item involved, the consumer will either have to take the machine to a recycling centre, leave it at the kerb on a special day for the “˜recyclables and electrics’ collection, or put it in a special recycling bin.

Once the council has dealt with the item and recycled it, the manufacturer or importer will be billed for the cost of reprocessing.

Eurocrats hope that the move will force manufacturers to make their goods last longer and contain fewer dangerous chemicals.

The UK dumps one million tonnes of electronics each year, which include some highly polluting and toxic substances, such as lead, mercury and cadmium and some valuable metals such as nickel and even gold.

But retailers and manufacturers worry that their costs will rise by millions of pounds, risking jobs and making everyday products such as fridges and TVs cost more for consumers.

Businesses and ministers have argued over the cost of the new rules. Some in the industry believe that the cost will be £5bn in the first year and £1bn each year thereafter. The DTI has recently estimated that the move will cost £450m.

Julia Clarke, spokeswoman for the Consumers’ Association Scotland, said: “While we welcome the regulations on environmental grounds we would be very concerned if the costs were to be passed to the consumer.”

The industry has been vague when asked about how much the recycling costs will add to prices, claiming it would be impossible to say until the rules come into force.

However, industry insiders estimate the cost of disposing of simpler items, such as radios and washing machines, to be between £3 and £10, fridges and TVs up to £30 and computers as much as £65.

Hugh Peltor, the director of consumer electronics for Intellect, which represents the British electronics industry, said: “Even if we take the estimate of £450m, that is still an awful lot of money for the industry to absorb in what is a very competitive business environment.

“I believe that there will be pressure on producers to absorb the cost, at least at first. But inevitably there will be costs to be borne.”

The industry believes that ministers are dragging their feet over getting ready for the new laws. They believe that when the rules take effect there will be nowhere to take electrical goods for recycling.

They fear a repeat of the “˜fridge mountain’ debacle, which last year saw the authorities stuck with millions of fridges they were not allowed to dump but had no means of recycling.

Ross Finnie, the Scottish environment minister, has admitted that the Executive has not spoken to local councils about the looming changes in the law.

He said: “We have not been talking to local authorities about particular facilities because we think that, at this stage, the real targets of our effort should be the manufacturers and the distributors, which are, after all, the intended victims of the directive.”

Peltor reacted with disbelief to Finnie’s words.

He said: “The worry is that the government in both England and Scotland is simply not getting ready for this.

“I’m disappointed to hear what your minister has to say because local councils will be in the front line of dealing with this. We all want to make this work, but if the local authorities do not have the funding then it will be difficult.”

Critics of the plans believe that they have failed to address a number of concerns, such as who will pay for disposing goods made or imported by a company that has gone bust.

Environmentalists fear that unless it is easy to recycle electrical equipment, most consumers will simply throw away their old electrical goods.

Householders can already be fined for disposing of toxic substances, such as engine oil, with their household waste. However, in practice it can be all but impossible to catch people who are breaking the rules without having an inspector sift through each household’s bin.

In cities such as Glasgow and Edinburgh, where people may deposit their rubbish in large streetside communal bins, pursuing offenders may be seen as a futile effort.

An Executive insider said: “We are basically relying on people to be enlightened and to be nice, for want of a better word, about this.

“We want to try and educate people as to the impact of what they are throwing away, and then making things as easy as possible for people who want to recycle. But the idea of some kind of full-time rubbish police is not really on, I’m afraid.”

From The Scotsman