Figures have been released by the Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (DBERR), showing the progress made during the initial compliance period under the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Regulations SI 2006/3289. There was a total of 1,556 designated collection facilities (DCFs) which were considered to meet the requirements of the WEEE Regulations for the establishment of a network of collection facilities for household WEEE. The majority of these were civic amenity sites set up by waste disposal authorities across the UK.
For the first compliance period, 37 producer compliance schemes (PCSs) were approved and operational. Three further PCSs have since been approved by the Environment Agency. In total, 4,065 producers have been registered on a PCS, with 3,696 of these in England, 96 in Wales, 95 in Scotland and 36 in Northern Ireland. 142 were situated outside the UK. Through these schemes, around 1.51 million tonnes of household electrical and electronic equipment was placed in the UK market during 2006. In addition, on 5 November 2007 there were 2,680 members of the distributor takeback scheme, which added up to more than 75% of the UK electrical retailing on a volume of sales basis.
Tony Perdotti, Director of sustainable development at DBERR, said "We have done quite well - as required by the WEEE Regulations we have an adequate network and we have indicative figures that we are already meeting the targets set for us by the European Union." The Environment Agency have however warned that while regulation has so far been carried out with a light touch, they will "soon be regulating with a big stick."
