Independent Retailers

Introduction

All retailers, large and small, must comply with the WEEE Directive. The Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) has recently tasked an organisation called the Vehicle Control Agency (VCA) with enforcing compliance.

Retailers can comply in one of two ways.

First, they can join the Government-backed ‘Distributor Take-back Scheme’ (DTS), at a cost of £400 per year (if their total annual sales of electrical products are below £100,000) or £1,500 (if their annual sales of electrical goods are between £100,000 and £1.5 million per year).

Secondly, they can offer ‘in-store take-back’, by allowing a customer buying a new product to bring a product of similar type and function back to the store, for disposal by the store. Retailers taking this route must also ensure that they display a simple sticker or poster confirming that they offer the in-store take-back option.

For independent retailers that do not specialise in electrical goods, or whose sales of electrical goods are substantially below £100,000 per year, joining the DTS may be an unnecessarily expensive option. However, these retailers may not want the hassle of arranging the collection of unpredictable quantities of WEEE from their store, haggling over the collection costs or worries over the correct waste transport licensing.

What we do

The Electronic Waste Company has therefore developed a compliance package specifically for those independent retailers who sell a small volume of electrical goods, but who do not want either the financial burden of joining the Distributor Take-back Scheme or the hassles of managing their own in-store take-back.

For these retailers, we charge an annual fee of £100 to undertake all necessary compliance documentation, and we provide the required in-store signage. We will then collect WEEE returned to the store, as and when a viable quantity has accumulated, at a fixed cost of £70 per tonne. The vast majority of retailers in this category find that they are seldom, if ever, asked by customers to take back and item of WEEE – hence, the additional costs of collection are generally close to zero.

Our track record

The Electronic Waste Company currently provides numerous independent retailers with this streamlined compliance solution.

To find out more about how we can help SMEs of all types, please contact us on 0845 2011380