The fund is expected to be spent over the next three years on a range of activities including technical research, communications, behaviour change activities and local projects.
The first stage of the process, an open call for ideas for technical research projects, opens today [June 6, 2018]. Ideas for projects should be sent to: [email protected] by August 30, 2018. Further calls for technical research projects will be held in 2019 and 2020. Across the three years, around £1m will be invested in research.
Among the initial technical projects already confirmed is one that will assess the presence of persistent organic pollutants in plastics arising from waste electricals and electronics, in a project led by ICER; and the development of a mixed WEEE protocol ahead of open scope, in a project led by the WEEE Schemes Forum.
A further £4m will be invested in local projects. In September, local authority groups and the Reuse Network will be invited to present their views for the best approach for working with local authorities and reuse operators.
Finally, £3m will be invested in communications and behaviour change programmes, with spend spread across three years. Later this year, communications and behaviour change experts will be invited to pitch their proposals.
For each of the three broad areas – local projects, technical research and communications, and behaviour change programmes – a panel, drawn from actors across the WEEE system, will be invited to support judging and appraisals of bids.
Susanne Baker, Chair of the JTA, and head of techUK’s environment and compliance programme, comments: “The size of this year’s Fund means that we can make a significant difference to how the UK WEEE regime operates and functions.
“There is no urgency to spend the money quickly, the focus will instead be spending the fund carefully on projects that can deliver genuine and lasting improvements to the system with the buy-in and support from the community of local authorities, businesses and civic society groups that manage and deal with these products at the end of life.”