Wholesalers own WEEE charge

[Markc]

A bit livered at the minute about a further charge being levied by my wholesaler on the return of WEEE directive lamps.

I will name and shame, Electric Centre, Norwich due to finding their lamp box locked today and being told they will charge me £7 for one lamp or £7 for 300 lamps if I bring them any back for disposal / recycling!

Now as I’m to understand it the WEEE charge levied on all these lamps is to cover the cost of recycling them so the £7 is for “filling in the paperwork” waste duty ticket.

What an incentive to try and do your bit and recycle lamps by being hit in the pocket again with a manager (who by the way is incapable of even speaking to you on the counter if he walks past!) attempt at improving sales figures. Well your improvement today cost you a sale of 57 lamps and emergency light replacement and will threaten future sales or even a closure of our account!

No other wholesaler charges us for this service so long as we buy the same number of lamps (within reason) as what we recycle. Which is a fair system. It costs us enough after all to bring them back with transport costs etc. What the hell is this £7 for? Is it just the filling in of a ticket?

Anyone else have to pay for this type of disposal? Is it legal to charge for this again?

 

[Richard Burns]

I cannot remember the details but the cost of recycling the lamps is borne by the manufacturer of the electronic equipment.
Domestically if you deliver the WEEE to the place from which you are buying a replacement then you cannot be charged for that service.
If the item is to be collected from a domestic residence then a delivery charge can be levied.
I am not certain of the commercial arrangements but would have felt that the only cost that could be charged would be an internal administrative charge for on site handling of the materials.
£7 per lot seems steep for a small business,however it would be fine if you are changing lamps all day and regularly have 1000s.
If you store the lamps to get a stock of waste lamps then you have to become a waste transfer station which is costly to run!

 

[KevinS]

It's 15p per light at Newey & Eyre

 

[Markc]

It's 15p per light at Newey & Eyre

Its 15p per lamp + £7 per return to wholsaler to put old lamps into coffin box at Electric Centre Norwich!

 

[MarkieSparkie]

When the local wholesalers started introducing this in our region, we started taking the lamps to local authority recycling centre where the service is free, just don't turn up in a van or they will try and charge for taking trade waste. We take it in turns to do the recycling run over the weekend.

 

[SYKRAPS]

CEF charge a WEEE amount when you buy a new lamp and it is an amount per lamp bought, this is whether you return 1 or not

 

[marc_v33]

we have a 20p, 10p or 3p dependant on the lamps and the wholesaler does not bother how many get brought back in comparison to what has been purchased, just give you the key for the bin and let you get on with it!!

 

[ashrow]

you pay the charge to recycle on the new lamp you buy ie cost is added to the lamp (at my wholesalers in my region) regardless if you recycle the old lamp or not

 

[ExArmy]

all the wholesalers i have used, (eds, CEF, senate and the other small independants) charge me a small amount of pence per lamp,never actually recycled any though as i leave all waste in the customers bin

 

[ashrow]

i leave mine with my clients to, it is not my lamp to recycle

 

[ExArmy]

i leave mine with my clients to, it is not my lamp to recycle

exactly, if i collected all the rubbish from jobs and brought it home with me, i'd need a skip! i only have a black wheelie bin and it gets full enough

 

[Nigel Harvey]

Hi. I was forwarded details of your discussion. Just to let you know that free waste lamp recycling is available from Recolight. Just put Recolight into google, click on free recycling locator, and put in your postcode. For businesses, please tick the "commercial collection points" box. Any questions, please call the Recolight office on 0845 6017749, and they should be able to help you out.