The Federation of Small Businesses and the National Association of Specialist Computer Retailers (NASCR) have thrown their weight behind a campaign to fight the crippling effect the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive will have on smaller UK firms.
Leading the campaign, Hendy Armstrong, founder of the Independent Trade Association of Computing Specialists (ITACS), is calling for the channel to form a united front and lobby the government over the unequal costs to small PC builders and VARs that the regulations will create.
The campaign’s main goal is to get the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to revert to its original proposal of allowing small businesses to deposit WEEE free of charge at a local distributor collection facility.
Armstrong told CRN: “If this isn’t sorted it will cause a huge number of small independent system builders to go out of business which will have a knock-on effect for the whole channel. It would also impact on big vendors like Microsoft who do a lot of business with small system integrators.”
Armstrong is urging resellers to send a letter he has drafted to their local MP. The letter can be found at: www.itacs.org.uk/documents.htm
“If we can get 100 MPs raising the issue with their minister or going direct to the DTI then I think the government would take notice,” he said.
Geoff Carr, a director of NASCR, said: “It is only now that the impact of the WEEE directive on our industry has become clear. A lot of the details of the regulations were not published until recently. There is a greater penalisation of smaller businesses compared to larger firms.”
Mike Lawrence, managing director of VAR Bentpenny, added: “I’m very pleased that the industry has finally come to its senses and decided to act as one voice against the government on this. It makes complete sense for everyone to unite.”
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