(UK) - UK producer compliance schemes failed to collect enough e-scrap last year to meet the new EU target for 2016. According to data released by the Environment Agency on Wednesday, a total of 591,005 tonnes of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) from both household and businesses were collected in the UK last year.
This represents just over 36 per cent of the average amount of new equipment placed on the market in the three preceding years (2013-2015), well short of the minimum of 45 per cent required by EU law.
The low collection rate is the result of very low collection volumes in the B2B segment. Considering only household WEEE, the collection rate in the UK exceeded 45 per cent last year, coming in at 46 per cent. However, the collection rate reported for business sector WEEE stood at a mere 3 per cent. The highest collection rate reported for any single B2B WEEE category was 8 per cent for cooling appliances such as fridges and freezers.
