EU recycling rules delayed to avoid a repeat of 'fridge mountains'

[Mr T.]

EU recycling rules delayed to avoid a repeat of 'fridge mountains'
By Charles Clover, Environment Editor
(Filed: 31/03/2005)

The EU rules will require a million tons a year of televisions, mobile phones, washing machines, computers, games consoles and hearing aids to be recycled.

They will affect every household in Britain, but will now be introduced in January 2006 in an effort to avoid a repetition of the mountains of white goods created when rules on recycling fridges came into force.

Electrical retailers are concerned, however, that the new rules will still cause chaos as they will now be introduced at their busiest time of year - in the middle of the January sales.

The EU Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment directive is intended to prevent toxic substances getting into the water supply by leaching out of landfill sites. Consumer electronics are thought to be responsible for 40 per cent of the lead found in landfill sites.

The directive makes it the producer's responsibility to take back all redundant appliances, such as washing machines, games consoles, torches and hearing aids. Ninety per cent of these items are currently dumped.

The directive applies to high street retailers, internet sellers and market stallholders alike, forcing them to either offer their own take-back scheme or to pay towards a centralised one.

The Government has said the ruling will be transposed into British law in August this year. But it is to risk enforcement action by the EU by not enforcing it until January next year.

The postponement comes after what industry sources say was a failure by the Department of Trade and Industry to make a series of key decisions.

One of these was how the responsibility for taking back goods should be allocated between different forms of retailer and how the take-back schemes should be paid for.

Despite the postponement, the symbol of a wheelie bin crossed out - meaning goods should be recycled and not thrown away - has already begun to make its appearance on appliances from washing machines to games consoles.

Mike Mason, of Dixons Group, the electrical retailer, said: "We welcome the delay because so many issues have yet to be decided. It is a very complicated piece of legislation."

Nigel Smith, of the British Retail Consortium, said he welcomed the delay but remained concerned that January's implementation date falls on one of the busiest periods of the year for the retail sector. "We will continue to press Government to look at bringing in the change on the commencement date in April 2006," he said.

A spokesman for the DTI said that Britain was not the only country having difficulty with the directive. Germany has already agreed to postpone implementing it until Jan 1 next year and other member states are believed to be following suit.

"We need to get everything properly into place before we go ahead," she said.