Madam, - Your editorial (August 19th) on electrical goods recycling is based on an incomplete understanding of the circumstances and facts surrounding the introduction of the new charges. I would like to outline the viewpoint of Dixons Stores Group, the country's largest electrical retailer .
In July Minister for the Environment Dick Roche introduced regulations transposing the EU WEEE Directive into Irish law. In doing so he allowed the manufacturers of electrical goods to add a visible environment management cost (VEMC) to the invoice cost of all goods which they sell to retailers. The VEMCs were proposed by these manufacturers and approved by a Government-appointed body. Retailers were informed of these charges by manufacturers on August 9th.
Retailers had no say or influence in deciding these new charges, which are nothing other than a price increase. They were decided by the manufacturers of these products and approved by a body appointed by the Minister. It remains a mystery to me as to how the Minister could declare that prices would not rise in electrical shops when he was legislating for a producer price increase.
The exception to all of this are the manufacturers of computers, who have elected not to charge VEMC's and who have undertaken to absorb recycling costs themselves. As retailers we have naturally not increased our computer prices, as we have faced no increase in the price of the products we sell.
No retailer has used the WEEE directive to profiteer and the newspaper which made this assertion has hastily withdrawn it and has publicly apologised.
Outside of manufacturers the only beneficiary is the Government, as the new charges are subject to VAT.
The truth of the introduction of recycling charges is that the producers of TVs, washing machines, fridges etc have avoided any recycling costs. Following extensive lobbying of the Minister by the producers, he has facilitated them by creating a scheme whereby the general public finance recycling costs rather than insisting, as we had urged him in our own lobbying efforts, that manufacturers accept responsibility for the recycling of their products.
So insistent is Mr Roche that these new charges are passed on to consumers that we are now compelled, by law, to display them separately in our shelf pricing, on our till receipts and in our advertising. This makes the position of the Consumer Association of Ireland completely baffling, as its urging of the public to shun retailers who show these new charges is, in effect, a condemnation of retailers who obey the law!
If the CAI could understand that retailers are deriving no benefit whatsoever from these charges and are doing nothing other than collecting revenue on behalf of the producers and the Minister, it might contribute more productively to the debate.
We remain implacably opposed to the introduction of the charges and believe they should be abolished. Quite simply, manufacturers of electrical products are unwilling the pay the costs of recycling. They have persuaded the Minister to legislate for them to make the public pay, and pay handsomely, rather than pay themselves.
Whatever happens, take-back of electrical products by retailers is here to stay, we are delighted to operate the scheme and look forward to playing our part in the responsible recycling of old electrical products.
However, telling the general public that prices will not rise in retail outlets when a cost increase to retailers has been sanctioned by the Government is, quite simply, bizarre. It is certainly a useful means of avoiding political flak.
I struggle to understand how you can assert that retailers are somehow to blame for this whole sorry mess when we have achieved no gain whatsoever and when the manufacturers of these products are being let completely off the hook. - Yours, etc,
DECLAN RONAYNE, General Manager, Dixons Stores Group, Park West Industrial Estate, Dublin 12.
Madam, - I am a small independent electrical retailer in Killarney and am appalled by the level of ignorance exhibited in your editorial (August 18th). For the education of your readers I will explain in simple terms how I am benefiting from the waste directive, WEEE.
To remove a washing machine from a customer's home and deliver it to the transfer station near our town, thus requiring a man and a van, I receive the princely sum of €4 or 20 per cent of the WEEE charge.
Also, having received a forest of paper from overpaid, underworked civil servants for the best part of six months, when we went to deposit electronic waste there were absolutely no reception facilities at our local transfer station, ie, nothing done on the ground. - Yours, etc,
JOHN O'LEARY, Killarney.