Retailers of white goods should take old ones away

I was thinking that there is free collection of old white goods but realise that's because I'm in Ireland and it's the law.

I'm sure a free removal with a new machine would reduce the number of people selling or donating older working machines just because of the convenience. This would lead to more working machines being scrapped before the end of their useful life.

Not of you are a young person buying their first home.why should they pay for disposal?

Nah. Absorbing £20 costs to recycle is nothing compared to the profit on selling a new unit. Also it’s rarely the sellers that are the manufacturers with white goods.

No it won't because you don't have to let them take it away, it's just a service that most retailers offer, for an already token fee of £20, which will almost certainly be less than the cost of removing an item and taking it to wherever strips it for recycling/disposal.

It's just a service that's offered for people who aren't able to take broken items to the tip and in many cases will be cheaper than local council bulky collection.

People are still free to sell or give away still working white goods, although it's likely most things will be no longer working when they're replaced anyway.

They never charge much for taking the old one away though, if you're buying a new appliance you factor that in to the cost of it

It will never be free. It's going to cost them time, fuel and money to tip all old white appliances. They'd have to get that money back, by adding it onto the price of new ones. Otherwise they'd all go under from the rising costs. £20 is managable, when buying a new one.

It hasn't effected their price in Ireland. It is art of their requirement as a retailer of electrical goods
Companies that produce electrical and electronic goods must cover the cost of collecting, treating, recovering and disposing of WEEE in an environmentally friendly way.

In fact we are already paying for white goods disposal through council tax, just not the transport. People should very much have the option to continue to use this service they are already paying for if prepared to transport the old appliances themselves.

Was just going to post that:

If you are having an electrical appliance delivered to your home, you can have the old item collected at the same time for no extra cost. The retailer cannot charge for collecting the waste equipment, although they can charge a delivery fee for the new item

So they can charge a delivery fee of new item but not a collection fee of old item.

New white goods would need to be an awful lot more expensive for the manufacturer/retailer to absorb the cost of taking the old one away.

Individuals have the option of taking to the local council recycling centre without charge (generally) whereas a business has to pay for that. There are always scrap people willing to collect white goods without charge.

Re the post that said we should check the licence of a 'man with a van' before we let them take our waste: Yes, this is important. I think that in theory householders can be prosecuted if they pass their waste on to a waste carrier who disposes of it illegally. We have a legal duty to take reasonable steps to ensure we only pass waste to someone who is licenced to transport and dispose of it.

This is free in Ireland, and there’s an EU Directive on it as mentioned by another poster.
www.citizensinformation.ie/en/environment/waste-and-recycling/weee/#:~:text=Retailers%20must%20take%20back%20your,new%20item%20you%20are%20purchasing.

We’ve always just paid the £20 or whatever it is.

If it’s something still usable, e.g. a cooker or washing machine, because e.g. you’re having new, integrated, someone via Gumtree or e.g. Next Door, will usually be happy to take it away for free. That’s what dd and SiL did with at least one item.

Then what do the company do with it? There are costs to remove, where do they put it/store it. What do they do with it next? It costs to refurb or recycle, it costs the company to scrap, they would need to store in a warehouse. Additional workers also, it not free because it costs to provide this service

I work in this business and we get 300 - 400 of these units back a week, and thats just one warehouse of refurbishable, the scrap units which you can't do anything with (you would be amazed what state some of these items come back in, like something out of a horror movie) you are looking at another 400-500 going a week. Fridges have to go to specialised dealers due to the gas. Couldn't be done if we didn't charge for the service

No. People should check the licence of whoever they’re using to take away their white goods or anything else to stop fly tipping. It’s unregulated people that are fly tipping, not the person that wants to get rid of his fridge.

I've recently had a new kitchen and utility room installed and gave my white goods away (all working) who should be liable for the removal of their goods?

There are plenty of options for people. I don’t think the onus should be on the retailer to do anything more than offer to take away the old one for a fee. If they offered a free service it would be built into the price of all appliances which is unfair on anyone who doesn’t need it.

I paid the retailer to take my old washing machine when bought a new one.

We put my mums old washing machine at the bottom of the drive on a nice day with a note saying ‘Noisy but working and free’ and a chap happily took it.

I asked about getting rid of a dishwasher and microwave for scrap on a free site and a chap messaged straight away and came the same day. When I needed him again again a few years later, I had kept his number and messaged him direct. He fetched them within a day or two.

The scrap man won’t take fridges so when mine breaks (it is 15 years old) I will either pay the retailer or the council which ever is cheapest / most convenient.

This!

The consumer always bears all of the cost. Companies don't have a magic pot of recycling money for fridges and freezers. All revenues come from customers, so that's where recycling costs come from too.

Round our way the scrap guys would have taken that in minutes. When we were having work done on the house including a new kitchen, a couple of them were driving by twice a day to see what we had taken out. We left all metals next to the skip and everything from the old boiler and dishwasher to knackered baking trays and curtain poles were gone in minutes.

Fair. I missed that and was referring to this: “Surely if people can spend mid hundreds on white goods, then they can afford the £20 to have old item taken away to be recycled/disposed properly. ”

Then there would be fewer second hand white goods available for those who can't afford new. And SO much wastage.

We're supposed to be re-using and recycling.

Our local scrappy is amazing even came in my house to collect. As im disabled and live on my own and will collect next day.
Only thing he charges for is fridge freezers and he was still cheaper than the council.

Not all old goods are broken though. We got a new freezer and did got our older but still working one.