Cost of disposal should be added onto retail price, says environmentalist

Beach Buddies founder says fly-tipping will only increase unless there's a solution found

The founder of a local environmental group says the cost of disposal should be added onto the retail price of a variety of goods to discourage fly-tipping.

Bill Dale says volunteers from Beach Buddies are seeing increasing numbers of items such as TVs, computer screens and fridges during clean-up operations. 

It comes as amenity sites across the Island have introduced or increased charges for those wanting to get rid of electronic waste. 

Mr Dale says rather than 'trust people to dispose of goods responsibly', other solutions should be looked at:

The conversation around fly-tipping has heightened in recent days, after a sofa was dumped in the Manx countryside.

Some are blaming those increased charges seen at amenity sites.

A statement from the manager at the Western Civic Amenity Site says it's charged under the new Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) contract at £490 plus vat per tonne. 

Mike Rose estimates the site could process approximately 80 tonnes of WEEE annually, with costs of more than £50,000 a year - adding it doesn't want to charge people, however its own costs are very high.  

In response, the Department of Infrastructure has told us it undertakes the tender process for the disposal of such waste and the Island’s four civic amenity sites then choose whether to accept that or seek their own alternative.

DoI Minister Michelle Haywood says the pricing for amenity sites was not 'decided’ by politicians at a local or national level.

"There are strict environmental guidelines about the disposal of electrical goods - batteries and circuit boards need specialist disposal and can be very environmentally damaging.

"The Island is too small to support waste reprocessing so all the electrical goods that we import and use then have to be sent off to be recycled.

"Local amenity sites can reduce the weight/volume of waste by stripping down the wiring, circuit boards and batteries from electrical goods and then handling the remainder through the usual metal or plastic waste streams.

"Neither the local amenity sites or the government are making money. The new costs are the result of a procurement exercise and reflect the cost of collecting, transporting and recycling the waste off the island for re-processing."

Dr Haywood says while the department is aware of fly-tipping, someone dumping a sofa is nothing to do with waste electrical goods adding: "That’s the actions of someone who doesn’t care about our island."

PAY UPFRONT SUGGESTION

In response to Mr Dale's suggestion of people paying upfront to have WEEE disposed at the end of use, the minister says it won’t solve this issue but 'will create paperwork and processes'.

"No one buying a TV 15 years ago thought very much about the disposal costs at the end of its life. Now we are starting to realise that these wastes need to be dealt with responsibly and we (the owners of the electrical goods) need to pay for that to happen.

"That payment can either be direct to the civic amenity sites (like now) or local authorities could put up their rates and fund it that way."