Retailers To Pay For Consumers' E-waste Recycling From 2026 Under UK Plans (theguardian.com) 47
British households will benefit from improved routes for recycling electronic goods from 2026, under government plans to have producers and retailers pay for household and in-store collections. From a report: Consumers would be able to have electrical waste (e-waste) -- from cables to toasters and power tools -- collected from their homes or drop items off during a weekly shop, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said in a consultation published on Thursday. The ambition is for retailers, rather than the taxpayer, to pick up the tab for these new ways of disposing of defunct, often toxic products safely. The measures are due to come into force in two years' time.
Almost half a billion small electrical items ended up in landfill last year, according to data from the not-for-profit Material Focus. This problem was particularly acute during Christmas, when 500 tonnes of Christmas lights were thrown away, the government said. [...] Measures aimed at easing the problem of electronic waste now include requiring larger retailers to create "collection drop points for electrical items in-store" for free, and without the need to exchange this with a new purchase. From 2026 onward, bricks-and-mortar retailers and online sellers would have to collect any broken or rejected large electrical goods including fridges or cookers when they are delivering a replacement product, Defra said.
Almost half a billion small electrical items ended up in landfill last year, according to data from the not-for-profit Material Focus. This problem was particularly acute during Christmas, when 500 tonnes of Christmas lights were thrown away, the government said. [...] Measures aimed at easing the problem of electronic waste now include requiring larger retailers to create "collection drop points for electrical items in-store" for free, and without the need to exchange this with a new purchase. From 2026 onward, bricks-and-mortar retailers and online sellers would have to collect any broken or rejected large electrical goods including fridges or cookers when they are delivering a replacement product, Defra said.
"Retailers Pay" (Score:4, Insightful)
Ignoring the fact that they immediately raise prices enough to cover the costs.
It's really just a tax that's being collected at the cash register.
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Yep, but then they have the trade off to make something easier, read cheaper to recycle to keep the costs down or keep the costs higher and be less competitive.
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It is time ALL products came with a tax. Things that are easily recycles, repaired, reused , and have longer life expectancy will over all have a lower cost to the buyer.
It should also be 100% of the cost of recycling the product, that money then goes to the recycling companies to make them cost effective.
Win win all around.
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It will be interesting to see how Amazon and other online only retailers deal with it. Are they going to come and collect my old fridge in 15 years time?
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They won't: remember they're not the "retailer", they're just lining up buyers and sellers, so those mysterious fly-by-night Chinese companies are the retailers. That's the logic for how it's legal for them to profit selling blatantly illegal stuff, like the burn-your-house-down-and-electrocute-the-kids $2 Appel charger specials and so on.
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The new regulation says the responsibility for life cycle is on the retailer, which makes some sense because they are the point of contact for the consumer. It's not equivalent to a tax because the rate is not fixed. They are free to organise the way they want and find less expensive options as long as they comply with thee objective. It's an additional cost just like fire insurance or taking back returns within warranty period, or testing fresh food quality and discarding unsold items, and everything else
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The new regulation says the responsibility for life cycle is on the retailer, which makes some sense because they are the point of contact for the consumer.
Unless you're the retailer, in which case the only sense it makes is that it costs you more, directly and indirectly, and adds an additional layer of bureaucracy that you have to get right or face ruinous fines.
They're playing catchup to California on stuff like this, where we have state regulators dig through our trash cans looking for batteries and burnt out light bulbs, with five figure (more after the first offense) fines if they find any.
It's not about the environment, or protecting consumers. It's abo
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They're playing catchup to California
They are playing catchup with EU directive 2018/851/CE.
If it's not voluntary, it's a tax.
A tax is paid to a government.
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A tax is paid to a government.
A tax is paid by government mandate.
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Same old UK... This guy will be coming by your flat... "Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!"
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Except when every retailer has the same expense added, they all add the same amount to the price. There will only be a couple vendors providing the service, sio there won't be much room for differing prices. The largest retailers will be able to get disposal services at a lower bulk rate, giving them an additional advantage over smaller/local retailers. As with most government regulations, the consumer pays more and the largest companies gain competitive advantages.
Re:"Retailers Pay" (Score:5, Insightful)
Is that supposed to be a bad thing? It means people who live a life of high consumption will be covering the waste they produce, and those who live a more austere style will not be subsidizing their environmental impact. That might lead to consumers demanding more durable or easily-repairable goods.
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Is that supposed to be a bad thing? It means people who live a life of high consumption will be covering the waste they produce, and those who live a more austere style will not be subsidizing their environmental impact. That might lead to consumers demanding more durable or easily-repairable goods.
Quite,
I've always despised conspicuous consumerism (and food waste). A higher price at the register might make some people think twice about something that is just going to end up in landfill, or worse sending some poor kid blind in a 3rd world recycling dump.
They can't just immediately raise prices (Score:2)
If you have good antitrust law enforcement and therefore good competition retailers can't instantly pass costs on to you.
On the other hand if you have allowed regulatory capture to shut down antitrust law enforcement because you've been constantly distracted by pointless moral panics and culture wars then yeah, they can soak the living bleep out of you but they
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Every retailer will have the same added price. There is no way to avoid it, so competition does not prevent pass through. There will be a very limited number of companies that contract to handle the waste from the retailers. It's just not an industry where companies/people will be lining up for processing electronic trash. They will be setting the price, not the retailers.
Anti-trust enforcement will have no impact here. Unless they go completely overboard, in which case, it will just drive smaller comp
Re: They can't just immediately raise prices (Score:2)
Re: "Retailers Pay" (Score:2)
Ignoring the fact that they immediately raise prices enough to cover the costs.
It's really just a tax that's being collected at the cash register.
Oh no! Retailers won't hide the recycling costs, for real? You're saying recyclability might just be priced in, so something that is hard to recycle costs more than something easier to recycle and people would vote with their wallets? What an unfortunate, completely unforeseen side effect!
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What people miss here is that the retailers are already responsible for a lot of this sort of thing, and it hasnt made UK price’s ruinously expensive, so this wont either.
For example, our warranties here are “if it develops a fault in the first X years, the retailer you bought it from fixes it or replaces it”. Not the manufacturer, the retailer.
Much easier to deal with the entity you had a direct relationship with.
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Yes, so? And no, it is not a "tax". It is called actually paying for (part of) the environmental damage done by the stuff you buy. You know, taking responsibility for your actions. Well, maybe you do _not_ know that concept.
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Do you honestly think the people who set this policy don't know this? I'll give you a hint- they do, but they did it anyway because it was the only realistic way to actually collect the recycling fees.
Don't misinterpret, I'm not saying there should or shouldn't be fees for future recycling, just that the people who set the fee chose this route on purpose.
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It's really just a tax that's being collected at the cash register.
Nope. It's a regulation. The government has two forms of enacting policy, taxation related, and regulation related. Taxes would be to charge a fee for all goods for the government to implement a recycling program. Regulation is forcing retailers to implement a recycling program. The fact that this results in extra cost to consumers doesn't make it a "tax", it just makes it a true cost of goods with some previously freely unaccounted for externalities removed.
Don't be one of those anti-government types who c
Lmfao (Score:1)
Consumers will pay for it (Score:4, Informative)
But consumers will pay for it, in the form of increased prices.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for this, as people should understand and pay for the full life cycle of these kinds of goods. And in some ways this is also a nice barrier for foreign companies who have a habit of "dumping" products; you can't just sell a bunch of cheap electronics that go bad in 5 years and end up becoming an ewaste disaster.
But let's just call a spade a spade as it's the right thing to do; the price of these items to the consumer will represent the full life cycle cost.
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But let's just call a spade a spade
Indeed, let's. This is not a tax. Not everything that affects the cost of a product is a tax. Is the FDA a tax because the cost of approval of drugs is baked into what you pay at the pharmacy? Is the FCC a tax because Sprint pass on the cost of the billions they spent on spectrum licenses?
Call a spade a spade. Not everything a consumer pays for is a tax, and direct taxation has a piss poor effect on recycling programs (we've seen this in multiple countries the world over) where consumers just eat the cost r
We do it in California (Score:2)
California imposes a fee for larger items, like TVs. Retailers pass it on to consumers, but it's clearly disclosed on the receipt as a fee, rather than just rolling it into the price of the product.
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Americans like to pay a random amount of money when they get to the cash register. The ticket may say $100, but they like to pay some amount more than that, which is hard to predict.
We Brits absolutely refuse to do that - if it says £100, then we will pay £100 - if it's more than that, we'll simply leave the item on the counter and walk away, possibly muttering under our breath, for fear of 'making a scene'.
We brits also like never knowing quite what money is going where. We have a complex tax s
I have a better idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Make products that are repairable and provide parts and documentation
We don't need to make it easier to get rid of disposable products
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And the same people demanding everything be repairable and not disposable are the same ones pushing for huge wage increases. When the labor cost for repair goes up, it has a drastic effect on the value of repair vs. replace. If you legislate higher prices for goods to shift that cost basis, then you also make it harder for lower income people to afford those goods. Manipulating the market by government fiat always hurts those that have less.
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Make products that are repairable and provide parts and documentation
We don't need to make it easier to get rid of disposable products
Yes but that is only part of the problem. Nothing is truly infinitely repairable and even if it were you wouldn't want it to be. I don't think the ability to repair my old Pentium 3 motherboard makes it any more desirable to use as a PC right now. It ended up at an electronics recycler (because I happen to live close to one and take all electronics / white goods there) not because it was broken but because it was undesirable.
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Make products that are repairable and provide parts and documentation
We don't need to make it easier to get rid of disposable products
That is likely one of the intended side effects. Fewer single use products.
I'd rather get a $400 jacket that will last me 10 years and a few more with some simple repairs than a $40 that is useless after a year. Same with electronics, something I can keep running and repurpose for years even if it's too slow to be my main gaming box any more. Or cars, the fact I can do some simple driveway spannering on my old Merc/Toyota saves me hundreds, I dread to think how bad modern cars are, especially as VW have
I love free (Score:2)
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Modern electronics should have a minimum 5 year warranty
Fridges/freezer/washing machines should have a 10 year warranty
The consumer pays for it anyway by having to pay for the waste disposal AND the purchase of a new item. All that is happening is you are paying in advance.
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Good, and that "fee" should be on the price docket so that buyers can be made aware of the manufacturers who make the effort to make things easier to recycle, repair, reuse and have better life expectancy. Modern electronics should have a minimum 5 year warranty Fridges/freezer/washing machines should have a 10 year warranty The consumer pays for it anyway by having to pay for the waste disposal AND the purchase of a new item. All that is happening is you are paying in advance.
Sure, ut consumers want low prices and so manufacturers respond by cutting costs to meet price points. If they offer longer warranties they'd have to raise prices too cover longer warranty periods and the resultant failures. You can get longer warranties if you are willing to pay extra, but most people balk at that; which of course is because it raises the final price even if you get a longer warranty.
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Australia/New Zealand has the "Consumer Guarantees Act", this has various provisions including one that says a product must be free of defect for a reasonable amount of time, and have a reasonable life expectancy.
"Reasonable" depends on the product (eg Whiteware has up to 10+ years, manufacturer (ie Chinese junk vs Apple), etc. Better still we claim against the store where we bought it from.
We NEVER buy extended warranties because the CGA covers it. I got my son's MacBook repaired (new mother b
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WRONG. Australia/New Zealand has the "Consumer Guarantees Act", this has various provisions including one that says a product must be free of defect for a reasonable amount of time, and have a reasonable life expectancy. "Reasonable" depends on the product (eg Whiteware has up to 10+ years, manufacturer (ie Chinese junk vs Apple), etc. Better still we claim against the store where we bought it from. We NEVER buy extended warranties because the CGA covers it. I got my son's MacBook repaired (new mother board) at just over 3 years old for free under the CGA. I have had a GPS system repaired, andX-Box repaired. I helped a friend claim against an engine rebuild done on a Harley 2 months before he bought it 2nd hand, yes the CGA covers workmanship etc too.
With extended warranty laws manufacturer ones are a bit redundant; although it depends on what protections tehy offer. In the EU, you need to return to the store where bought, and after a specific time the onus is on teh buyer to prove it was a defect.
And yet, we do NOT pay higher prices for name products in the 15 years or more we have had the CGA.
Looking a ta a base MBP M3 Pro chip, it looks like, pre-VAT, to be about US$ 120 more in New Zealand. Even allowing for currency fluctuations it appears longer warranty requirements are backed into the costs, even if spread over all machines sold in an area.
How about online retailers? (Score:2)
Someone correct me if I am wrong, but this only appears to impact physical retail locations. That makes sense to the extent those are the main location people can actually drop off electronics.
However, I can't help but wonder how this impacts online retailers. Seems like they might be getting a free ride here. I buy most of my electronic online. Then to dispose of it, I go to a physical location and drop it off.
Maybe there's a provision in the bill to add a fee to online retailers, which would then go to re
Death of High Street (Score:2)
This will only serve to kill physical retailers faster, as it creates more costs for them that the online sellers don't experience.
Amazon and other online retailers will ship you new stuff, and you can just dump your broken goods off at whatever local retailer you like.
Expect local retailers to close -if they haven't already.
Bring Out Your Dead (Score:2)
Obligatory Monty Python
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Absolutely nothing like EPR... (Score:2)
Now that the UK, with Brexit, doesn't have to follow EU regulations, we are so lucky we get to flex our soverignity by implementing the EU Extended Producer Responsibility or EPR on OUR terms rather than theirs!!!!
And 100% as a business owner hit by EU's EPR we'd have no choice but to also pass these Defra legislation costs on to our customers.
Once again, the UK has failed at basic economics.
Regulatory Capture at work - consumers lose (Score:2)
These are EXACTLY the types of regulations presented to the public as good, and for their benefit, which are actually intended to benefit the big businesses already in the marketplace. All the big companies in a given marketspace, like Apple in the laptops, tablets and cellphones, will easily be able to adapt to this and will simply bump prices up a bit. NO small business new competitor will be able to enter any affected marketplace. It's already VERY expensive and difficult for any entrepreneur to start a