This article is from page 11 of the 2006-04-18 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 11 JPG
THE CUT that retailers get from the Government-imposed charge on new electrical goods goes nowhere near covering the cost of disposing of the old ones, an Ennis electrical retailer has said.
Paul Flynn of Ennis Electrical, and a member of the board of Expert Ireland, says that the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) scheme is not covering the work and expense involved for the business people who have to administer it.
“We get just 10 per cent of the charge and the Government gets the rest. So if the charge is €20, the retailer gets €2. For that, we have to store old electrical items and we have to take on double the work in delivering. “When the delivery people drop off a new appliance they have to take away the old ones, which can be in a filthy state, and put them in the van with other new appliances for delivery. It looks terrible and some of the things we’re asked to collect are a health hazard,” he said.
Minister Dick Roche has proclaimed the scheme a massive success, on the basis of figures for the first six months of operation.
According to a department statement, more than 14,500 tonnes has been collected for recycling nationally in the period from August 13 last to February this year.
Included in this 14,500 tonnes is more than 11,000 tonnes of fridges and freezers and more than 1,000 TVs.
The statement continued: “This is the equivalent to an annual collection rate of 6.7kg per person. Our EU target is to reach 4kg per person by 2008. This is waste that the UN has described as the most polluting waste in the waste stream.”
Since the WEEE came into force, Ennis Electrical has been taking in up to 60 old appliances each week.
To make matters more complicated, there are five different categories into which old electrical goods have to be sorted.
Mr Flynn says that he is “lucky in the sense that I have a bit of space to store these goods. I never envisaged having to make room for this when I started in my premises. Smaller retailers are in a terrible fix because they don’t have the space,” he said.
“Minister Dick Roche may be happy that this scheme is a success but we are the people on the ground having to deal with the problems and do all the work,” he added.