An additional £3.5m has been allocated by the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Fund to boost funding for the collection and reuse of small waste electricals across the UK.
Small electricals too often end up in people’s bins and are not correctly collected and recycled at end of life. To help address this challenge and to make it easier for householders to recycle, the WEEE Fund has announced a new wave of funding and is calling for applications from waste collection authorities and reuse organisations to bid for the funding.
The £3.5m fund will focus on two key aspects of collecting small electrical waste – kerbside collection and reuse.
The small electrical waste kerbside collection investment fund is open to any UK waste collection authority to roll-out and or expand kerbside collection. Up to £3m has been allocated from 2020 through to 2022 . Applications are now open with a closing date of 25 October 2019. Further funding rounds are envisaged, subject to availability of funds.
The WEEE Fund is also launching a fund to support reuse organisations to build capacity and help expand their small electrical waste collection network and upgrade their re-use, testing and repair operations. Re-use collections will include household, kerbside or donation pick-up alongside school and office collection days. For this a sum of £500,000 has been allocated. The closing date for applications for the first round is 18 October 2019. This is open to any UK registered re-use organisation.
“We are working with a range of key partners including local authorities, businesses and community groups to deliver projects to encourage recycling and re-use of small waste electricals. Our four-pronged approach to increasing recycling includes: increased collection methods, reuse investment grants, and communications and behaviour change. Our new kerbside and re-use collection investment funds, will open up more and easier ways for people to recycle their small electrical household waste. These, together with communications and behaviour change projects, will deliver the buy-in and engagement that is essential for ongoing success,” said Scott Butler, WEEE Fund Manager.
The WEEE Fund is taking a “test and learn” approach to all the projects it is investing in to ensure it delivers the best ways to increase recycling of small waste electricals. Investment from the WEEE Fund is taking place in carefully selected key areas such as kerbside collection and re-use networks, we will then review and monitoring progress with our partners to see what works, before the WEEE Fund then provides further investment.
The WEEE Compliance Fee was established as a mechanism to support the delivery of the UK WEEE regulations. If a Producer Compliance Scheme misses their annual collection target, they have an option to pay a compliance fee for the tonnage shortfall. Since 2017 the WEEE compliance fee has generated £10.6 million to support increased recycling and re-use of waste electricals in the UK.
