Business, Innovation and Skills

Kate Green Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to raise concerns about the collection and recycling of hazardous mercury-bearing waste from lamps, and waste electrical and electronic equipment, known unpromisingly as WEEE.

WEEE is one of the fastest-growing waste streams in the UK. Following the adoption of a European directive in 2003, UK regulations were introduced. They took effect in 2007, and were aimed at recovering more of that waste and ensuring its treatment in an environmentally sound manner, with less going to landfill. The regulations require any business that sells and imports WEEE, including hazardous WEEE, to join an approved compliance scheme, pay a registration fee to the scheme, and supply data on the amount of electrical equipment placed on the market each year.

Under the regulations, companies are required to finance the costs associated with the treatment, recovery and disposal of WEEE, but it appears that some unscrupulous organisations have been charging disproportionately for that. That may explain why the big four lamp manufacturers and importers—Sylvania, Philips, OSRAM and GE—have established their own not-for-profit organisation, Recolight, which offers free lamp-recycling, paid for by the imposition of an up-front fee, unique to the lighting industry, on the sale of hundreds of millions of lamps purchased by households and commercial and public organisations since the introduction of the WEEE regulations. That may seem an understandable response, but I am concerned that it may have led to Recolight enjoying a dominant position in the market for the recycling of WEEE lamps.

The ability of the big four to apply a common up-front fee to every lamp certainly gives the appearance of the existence of a cartel. I understand that decisions about the application of the Competition Act 1998 fall outside Ministers’ remits, but the result appears to have been a suppression of competition in the market, which—this is the crucial point—limits the ability of the market to reduce the adverse environmental impact of hazardous mercury-bearing WEEE lamps. It is of concern that since the formation of Recolight, lamp recycling rates have actually fallen, whereas previously there was 25% year-on-year growth, and there has been growth in all other WEEE sectors. Research and development investment is also falling as a result, and jobs are being lost.

Negotiations on the European Commission’s proposals for a recast WEEE directive are drawing to a conclusion. I understand that the Government expect to launch a consultation on the amendment of the UK WEEE regulations shortly, and I urge Ministers to consider how best those regulations could be recast so as to prevent any manipulation of the market in a manner that reduces the effective management and disposal of hazardous mercury-bearing electrical waste. It is vital that the market works fairly to achieve that outcome, and clearly the lamp-recycling industry requires stability if it is to operate effectively.

I have a number of questions relating to the structure of the market, the impact on recycling rates, and the opportunities that will arise from recasting the WEEE directive and making consequential amendments to the regulations in the UK. First, in the light of an apparent fall-off in rates of lamp recycling, can Ministers say what monitoring there is of levels of recycling of WEEE, and what action is being taken to promote increased recycling volumes in order to protect the environment and WEEE operators—those are the main priorities of the WEEE directive—and ensure that consumer revenues are used appropriately? Will Ministers ensure that standards for the collection, transport and recycling of hazardous mercury-bearing lamps are improved, and ensure that full health and safety data on product recycling are made available to the UK lamp-recycling industry? Will they take the opportunity of the recasting of the WEEE regulations to look at whether the roles of the Environment Agency and the Health and Safety Executive could be strengthened? Will Ministers consider requiring the value of evidence to be set by an independent third party, particularly where producers’ compliance schemes compete, from a dominant position, with those of recyclers?

Do Ministers think that collection and compliance functions should be separated, and will they consider that during the exercise amending the WEEE regulations? Overall, will Ministers ensure that the overarching priority of the WEEE regulations is to increase recycling rates and improve environmental protection? It is clearly unacceptable for any behaviour by manufacturers to impact adversely on those objectives; that must be looked at carefully. It is important that Ministers take all possible steps, now and in the future, through the introduction of the amended WEEE regulations, to prevent such practices. I hope that Ministers will confirm that there will be strict regulation of the compliance schemes that have driven the kind of protective actions that are now threatening the survival of a once thriving independent market, so that we can ensure that recycling rates, rather than profit margins, are maximised. I am sure that Ministers will appreciate the public policy significance of these issues, and I very much look forward to the Government’s response.