Source · Select Committees · Environmental Audit Committee
Recommendation 10
10
Deferred
An Extended Producer Responsibility scheme could be used to incentivise the very best practice in...
Recommendation
An Extended Producer Responsibility scheme could be used to incentivise the very best practice in circular low-carbon product design. However, care must be taken to put circular economy principles at the heart of the policy and efforts made to harmonise it with wider efforts internationally. In any future producer responsibility system online marketplaces like Amazon should be responsible for ensuring that all EEE that is sold on their platforms is fully compliant with the law. Furthermore, producers should be required to pay exactly the same fees and follow the same rules selling online as they do offline. (Paragraph 71) Recommendation 6
Government response summary AI-generated
The government acknowledges the recommendation to enhance retailer obligations and ensure parity for online sellers, stating these principles will form an important part of the upcoming review of WEEE Regulations and will be subject to consultation.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Government Response
Deferred
HM Government · verbatim extract
Deferred
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.
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