Recommendation 7

HM Government Not Addressed

We thank the Committee for their recommendations around the enhancement of retailer obligations and the need to ensure parity in the collection obligations between online sellers, platforms, retailers. We welcome this opportunity to clarify our views on the current obligations of retailers in the existing WEEE system and our plans to consult on enhancing these in the forthcoming consultation on the review of the Regulations. As the Committee is aware, retailers can currently discharge their Regulation 42 obligation by joining the Distributor Takeback Scheme (DTS). It is worth noting the success of this scheme in that it has raised over £13 million from retailers since 2007 and has provided £9 million funding to Local Authorities to establish and register their Civic Amenity Sites as Designated WEEE Collection Facilities and £1 million of subsequent site maintenance funding. This funding has also been used to support projects across the UK designed to increase levels of collection and reuse. A consumer attitudes survey by Ipsos Mori has shown convenience plays a large factor in ensuring householders dispose of their unwanted electrical items properly and 72%1 of consumers surveyed said they would use collection points at supermarkets and shops. Recognising the role retailers can play in the enhancing the collection network, the UK Government made a decision to require large retailers to provide in store take back from 1st January 2021. As such, their membership to the current DTS will expire from this date. Online only retailers of any size and small retailers with an annual turnover of under £100k of turnover/year in electrical products will be able to remain in the current DTS which expires on December 31st, 2021. We exempted smaller stores from the decision to mandate take-back due to the logistical and operational difficulties associated with requiring them to implement take back. Online stores and small retailers will continue to contribute to the WEEE System through membership of the Distributor Takeback Scheme (DTS) until end of December 2021, which will in turn benefit LAs. Defra will consider any new proposals from industry for a DTS to replace the existing arrangements next year that meet the criteria set out in the WEEE Regulations. 1 http://sciencesearch.defra.gov.uk/Default.aspx? Menu=Menu&Module=More&Location=None&ProjectID=20257&FromSearch=Y&Publisher=1&Se archText=EV0278&SortString=ProjectCode&SortOrder=Asc&Paging=10#Description However, we recognise that online sellers and platforms must do more in terms of contributing to the collection network and fulfilling their producer responsibility obligations more broadly. We will therefore look at obligations imposed on retailers, online platforms and internet seller obligations under our review. We will explore options to extend those obligations to make it easier for householders to ensure unwanted items are re-used or recycled. Crucially, we want to ensure online sellers play a full part in providing supporting collection of WEEE and that retailers are not disadvantaged compared to online competitors. We recognise that online marketplaces can facilitate the activities of sellers who place electrical goods on the market without fully meeting their producer responsibility obligations. That’s why in our Resources and Waste Strategy, we highlighted this as one of the key areas for reform, to ensure that all sellers (or those facilitating sale), whether they are online or not, are compliant with producer and distributor obligations set out in future regulations. This is not a WEEE specific problem and work is ongoing within the context of introducing Extender Producer Responsibility for packaging to ensure that online platforms take on new obligations that mean products placed on the market by their sellers attract similar obligations to that supplied via traditional routes. Those same principles will form an important part of the review of the WEEE Regulations and we will consult on our proposals.