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Speaking in July at an event organised by the Department for Business for key industry stakeholders, Minister Malcolm Wicks reminded industry of some of the achievements made in the first year of the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) system in the UK, including exceeding the EU target by 2kg per person.
Challenging the industry to raise collection levels to 10kg by the end of 2009 he also spoke of plans to raise consumer awareness to further encourage the separate collection of electrical and electronic waste from other household waste.
At the event Wicks said: "In the first compliance period the UK collected over and above the 4kg target with a collection rate of 6kg per person and over 184,000 tonnes of household WEEE separately collected. This is a real and impressive achievement and is closely aligned with the wider agenda by the Government to create a sustainable society where we all understand the environmental impacts of our actions and improve on them.
"It is important we now explain the WEEE system more clearly to the public through a consumer campaign and we intend to embark on this toward the end of this year. Consumers should find it much easier to recycle and dispose of their electrical and electronic waste now."
The WEEE Stakeholder event was organised to give industry an overview of the UK WEEE system at the end of the first compliance period and the chance to meet the WEEE Advisory Body members and find out more about the work going forward.
At the event
Malcolm Wicks announced plans for the Department for Business to undertake a review of the whole UK WEEE system and its supporting infrastructure. Working closely with the Advisory Body and other key groups including producers, distributors, local authorities and small business representative bodies, the review will include producer compliance scheme and distributor take back scheme requirements, data collection and submission and the sharing of best practice across all elements of the system.
