Legal Update and sources of information: March 2016

The Waste Duty of Care expects waste producers, amongst others, to be responsible for knowing where they are sending their waste and taking steps to ensure those they contract to collect and manage their waste, are operating legally and are taking their waste to legal disposal, treatment and recycling sites.

Duty of Care Applies to anyone who imports, produces, carries, keeps, treats or disposes of controlled waste or has control of that waste (waste holder) You must take all reasonable steps to: prevent unauthorised or harmful deposit, treatment or disposal of waste (illegal waste sites, flytipping, import/export) Prevent a breach by any other person to meet the requirement to have an environmental permit, or a breach of permit condition Prevent the escape of waste from your control Ensure any person to whom you are transferring waste has the correct authorisation (registered carrier, broker, dealer) Provide an accurate description of the waste when it is transferred to another person Everyone has a role to play in reducing illegal waste activities. By taking responsibility for the waste we produce all the way to final reuse, recycling or disposal, we can all ensure that it doesn’t end up in the hands of illegal operators. Waste getting to the right place for recycling, treatment or disposal is everybody’s responsibility. If you: Produce Carry Export Keep Treat or Dispose of waste, you have a legal Duty of Care to ensure your waste is correctly handled by legal operators and sites.

Duty of Care – Code of Practice Consultation on the revised Waste Duty of Care Code of Practice (July 2015) Consultation ran for 8 weeks – finished on 21st September 2015 Waste Duty of Care Code of Practice published on 11th March 2016 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/waste-duty-of-care-code-of-practice A Code of Practice is an authoritative statement of practice and differs from legislation in that it offers guidance rather than imposing requirements. The Code of Practice is admissible in evidence and courts must take it into account in legal proceedings where it is relevant to the issues of the case The purpose of the Code of Practice is to give simple, clear and practical guidance on what those who import, produce, carry, keep, treat or dispose of controlled waste have to do to fulfil their legal duty of care obligations

What is happening? On 1st April 2016 Hazardous Waste Regulations amended Premises registration removed SIC requirements amended

The Hazardous Waste Regulations 2005 As of 1 April 2016 producers of hazardous waste in England will no longer need to notify their premises to the EA The format of the unique consignment note code will change The first 6 characters of the consignment note code (currently the premises registration number) will need to be replaced with the first 6 letters or numbers (not symbols) of the business name The second set of characters will continue to be 5 letters or numbers of your choosing. EXEMPT will no longer be used WM2 replaced by WM3 and now HP codes (since June 2015)

Consignment Notes The format for the consignment note code must be ‘XXXXXX/YYYYY’: where ‘XXXXXX’ is the first 6 letters/numbers (not symbols or spaces) of the name of the company entered in part A2 of the consignment note, followed by ‘/’ and then ‘YYYYY’ which is exactly 5 numbers or letters (not symbols or spaces) you choose to produce a unique code for that collection For example, CJTILE/A0001. If your company name has less than 6 letters/numbers you must assign the letter ‘Q’ to remaining characters. You must also assign an additional letter at the end of the consignment note code for certain types of consignment. Add: a ‘V’ to waste removed from ships - ‘XXXXXX/YYYYYV’ an ‘F’ to fly-tipped waste - ‘XXXXXX/YYYYYF’ a ‘D’ to waste moving under a consignee return derogation - ‘XXXXXX/YYYYYD’ a ‘P’ to continuous piped waste

Process giving rise to the waste You must provide a full written description and the Standard Industrial Classification SIC 2007 code of the process that created the waste. If you move waste produced by more than one process, use the SIC code and description of the process that produced most of the waste. You may use equivalent NACE codes here instead. NACE - Statistical classification of economic activities in the European Community

Further Guidance https://www.gov.uk/guidance/hazardous-waste-consignment-note-supplementary-guidance https://www.gov.uk/guidance/hazardous-waste-rejected-loads-supplementary-guidance https://www.gov.uk/guidance/hazardous-waste-returns-supplementary-guidance

Separate Collections Part 5 of the Waste (England & Wales) Regulations 2011 introduced new waste collection requirements to help maximise the economic opportunities and environmental benefits associated with higher quality recycling. From January 2015, paper/card, plastic, metal and glass waste must be collected separately from each other where this is necessary and technically, economically and environmentally practicable (‘TEEP’). Separated recyclables must not be re-mixed and waste producers must take all reasonable steps to apply the waste hierarchy as a priority order. The Environment Agency is the enforcement authority for Part 5 with power to issue notices to secure compliance with the duties.

Separate Collections - Outcomes Ensure dry recyclables are handled in the right way ending up in the right place so that we improve the environment and help the economy Use regulation in a robust, fair and proportionate way, to enable legitimate resource management, protect communities and the environment Future direction of regulation of recycling will need to take account of the broader political context. This includes progress on national recycling rates and likely further legislative changes in EU legislation around the Circular Economy.

Poor quality recycled material with low value, creating odour and flies nuisance and a fire hazard. Sometimes illegally mis-described as Refuse Derived Fuel.

Good quality recycled material with high value

Sources of Information https://www.gov.uk/guidance/develop-a-management-system-environmental-permits

Operator Competence https://www.gov.uk/guidance/legal-operator-and-competence-requirements-environmental-permits

Environmental permit compliance https://www.gov.uk/guidance/control-and-monitor-emissions-for-your-environmental-permit

Circular Economy Business Model Toolkit Unilever and Forum for the Future have developed a toolkit that identifies 10 different circular business model archetypes to help businesses think differently about product life-cycles. In the toolkit users can find an infographic summarising the archetypes and a card deck with inspirational case studies https://www.forumforthefuture.org/sites/default/files/Infographic.pdf https://www.forumforthefuture.org/sites/default/files/Card%20deck.pdf

Senior Environment officer Thank You Tessa Bowering Senior Environment officer Direct dial: 01258 483416 Tessa.bowering@environment-agency.gov.uk