The company has responded to the UK Government’s recent announcement that they are considering a requirement for all online marketplaces and retailers to collect old and used electronics from customers to make it easier for consumers to recycle electrical items and e-waste.
Effective Consumables Solutions (ECS) has commented on the UK Government’s recent announcements that they are considering changes to e-waste legislation as previously reported in The Recycler.
Currently online marketplaces and retailers do not have to collect e-waste they are only required to contribute towards the cost of e-waste processing. “Bricks and mortar” retailers, on the other hand, have to both collect e-waste and contribute towards the cost of processing and our disadvantaged compared to online marketplaces and retailers.
The UK Government is considering a requirement for all online marketplaces and retailers to collect old and used electronics from customers to make it easier for consumers to recycle electrical items and e-waste.
ECS explained that they are extremely well-positioned to comply with any Governmental changes regarding any legal recycling requirements for e-waste. The company is equipped with two of the largest recycling and remanufacturing sites in the UK, with an already successful dedicated recycling service (The Greener Side) for their partners e-waste.
Director Chris Fink explained: “As we’re primarily a remanufacturer this announcement is good news. This change will ensure that more empty cartridges will be available on the marketplace for remanufacturing purposes. We’d also hope that this will have a huge impact on the number of cartridges that are sent to landfill which currently sits at 85% of all cartridges that are bought.”
Better mandatory labelling is also being considered to enable consumers to make more informed decisions when buying products, particularly when it comes to sustainability and environmental impact.
ECS’s Director of Operations, Adam Lighton commented: “These proposed changes are certainly beneficial for us. Not only will we be able to highlight how circular our own products are, but competitors who don’t necessarily take circularity seriously will stand out more than they do currently, for the worse.”
The Government rejected calls to reduce VAT on repair services, arguing that any resultant loss in tax revenue would have to be balanced elsewhere.
The Government has also rejected calls for targets on the recovery of critical raw materials and retaining value from old electronics, such as gold, tungsten, indium, lithium and cobalt.
