You want, you get...but what do you leave behind as you go?

During my occasional visits to the household waste recycling centre (more commonly known as the CA site or "tip") one of the more arresting sights for me is the large number of electrical items awaiting recycling and final disposal.

Refrigerators and clapped out vacuum cleaners seem to be the dominant species in this habitat. Many of these items don't look very old, but in most cases buying a new appliance is often cheaper than repair especially as many items cannot be repaired at all once they break down.

Some items are even designed to have a limited shelf life. MP3 players and mobile phones are items that readily spring to mind. Most MP3 players are built with integral batteries that are not capable of being replaced easily, so once the battery has been recharged a certain number of times it loses its effectiveness. As it cannot be replaced easily it renders the whole unit useless.

The introduction of the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive should help to deal with this rapid obsolescence.

This new legislation is due to be introduced in 2007 to place responsibility for recycling appliances back on the manufacturers.

As with many pieces of environmental legislation, this is driven by the European Union, with individual countries deciding on how it should be implemented.

The UK has been dragging its heels over implementation of the WEEE directive, with several postponements already.

There have been a number of sticking points regarding the type of scheme that the government wishes to see implemented, but which industry has not been keen on because of cost and the practicalities of setting up collection schemes.

The aim of WEEE is to reduce the amount of waste produced in the first place, make producers responsible for the waste arising from breakdowns and obsolescence, set up collection schemes to recover this waste and improve the environmental performance throughout the life of the product.

The problem that manufacturers face is that because technology moves on so quickly now, many items are obsolete before they even leave the shelves of the stores.

Many people want to have the latest product, so are prepared to trade-in an old mobile phone, computer game, MP3 player etc after only a few months use.

This creates a moving problem that could end up being very expensive for the manufacturers and ultimately us as consumers since many of these costs will be passed on.

Perhaps that explains the reluctance of manufacturers to adopt WEEE and why it has been difficult for government to sell the idea.

WEEE is due to be implemented on January 1, 2007, with the main requirements in place by April 1, 2007, and full implementation on July 1, 2007.

However, given the delays so far it will be interesting to see whether WEEE will finally become a reality next year.