There will be no return to evidence trading to make up for surplus collections by members of the waste electronics industry, a letter from the department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) has confirmed.
New WEEE regulations introduced a collection target for producers. A compliance fee was also introduced for those who do not meet their collection targets.
Under the old system, those with surplus collection evidence could recover their costs via evidence trading – selling the surplus evidence – but this was terminated by BIS.
There was industry-wide concern that this practice led to overcharging.
Despite lobbying by both approved authorised treatment facilities (AATFs) and producer compliance schemes (PCSs) to return to evidence trading, the BIS letter confirms the new legislation.
Graeme Vickery, senior policy adviser at BIS, wrote: “In light of this change we have considered carefully whether the functionality on the Settlement Centre that allows PCSs to ‘trade’ evidence between each other is still required. We have concluded that this functionality will not in future be provided.”
Stewart Price, head of compliance at WeeeCare, told said that the decision was not a surprise. However, he said the biggest concern that the industry has is that lack of trading “reduces flexibility”. He added that many industry members also felt that “evidence trading meant a little less burden on AATFs.”