1. Putting the Right Waste in the Right Place
Preventing waste crime by raising awareness and enforcing ‘Duty of Care’
26 September 2019
Alan Holmes, Waste & Resources

2. The Session today: Waste Crime – causes, scale and impact
Action to tackle waste crime
Legitimate industry’s role:
- The ‘Right Waste Right Place’ campaign to raise awareness of Duty of Care
- Proposals to overhaul the carriers, brokers, dealers regime
despite a good deal of focus by government waste crime remains a massive problem for the UK.
I am going to start by examining why this is from the perspective of legitimate waste and resource management companies
I will look at some recent positive actions from Govt to tackle waste crime - and will also explore what we the industry think are some of the solutions – though it is clear there is no one silver bullet.
I am going to focus on the importance of waste producers and managers complying with the waste ‘duty of care’, to keep waste out of the hands of waste criminals as well as too ensure there own company compliance. And I will conclude with a brief overview of ESA’s own initiatives to raise awareness of this, through the ‘Right Waste Right Place’ campaign. A big part of this is exploring the importance of collaboration in raising awareness and how we can all work together to make a dent in waste crime.

3. be managed at a permitted site be managed within permit conditions
Duty of Care in a Nutshell
Waste must
be managed at a permitted site
be managed within permit conditions
not escape
only be transferred to an authorised person
be accompanied by an adequate description
Waste producers must comply with waste hierarchy

4. Right Waste, Right Place Campaign: To raise awareness across waste producing business sectors of the importance of Duty of Care compliance.
Why?
Drives company compliance and a secure audit trail
Duty of Care awareness is key to reducing waste crime
Provide a level playing field
Business benefits
So the Right Waste Right Place campaign aims to raise awareness of waste duty of care and its important role in tackling waste crime
The campaign focuses on the importance of duty of care to :
reducing waste crime - Keep waste out of the hands of Waste criminals- Waste criminals don’t produce waste , they get it from business, householders – possible even local authorities ! We need to stop this
Ensure company compliance and a secure audit trail
Provide a level playing field – prevent illegal operators undercutting legitimate operators
Last but not least to show that there can be Business benefits from thinking a bit more about the waste you produce and how it can be better managed to better consider the waste hierarchy for example

5. The Waste Chain in 1990
I just wanted to highlight that Duty of Care was brought in ata a time over 25 years ago when the waste chain was quite simple
Waste produced – waste collected, maybe a bity of bulking up – and straight to….landfill
More complicated than 25 years ago

6. The waste chain in 2019!!!
With the move away form waste to resource – we have seen a significant increase in the numbers of different ways to manage waste.
From reprocessing, recycling, to various forms of segregation and treatment – add to the mix the increase in the volumes of waste managed by waste brokers and dealers – and the increase in rdf, weee and recyclate export…….And you have a much more complicated picture
So now we need to consider who is in this ever expanding ‘chain’? And how far do my Duty of Care obligations as a waste holder stretch?
When might my obligations end?
It could be argued that Duty of Care was simply not designed to cope with this level of complexity …..

7. Waste Crime
Not a victimless crime: Impact on environment and communities; Deters investment by legitimate operators in the sector
Getting worse? - Despite increased attention by Government.
ESA’s Rethinking Waste Crime/Government Serious Organised Waste Crime review/Resources and Waste Strategy
Cost of waste crime up to £1 billion a year….
Fly-tipping: nearly 1 million incidents/yr and £60 million cost to Local Authorities in England and Wales - and rising!
new large scale illegal waste sites added to regulators’ databases every year
despite increased government attention and funding we are not yet seeing any real improvement in the reducing waste crime – getting woprse?
as quantified in ESA’s rethinking waste crime report

8. Government action to tackle waste crime:
Additional funding
Sentencing Council Guidelines
Fixed Penalty Notices
Enhanced Enforcement Powers
Landfill Tax for Unauthorised sites
Better Intelligence sharing
Resource & Waste Strategy

9. So when we talk about waste crime what do we mean?
Well ESA’s Rethinking Waste Crime categorised waste crime into six different categories and these were also reiterated in the Governments own review into serious and organised waste crime.
Rethinking Waste Crime also monetised the impact of the 6 categories – with a grand (and some would say conservative total) around £600 odd million
The 6 main categories are of waste crime :
Flytipping million
Misclassification and fraud – 129 million
Illegal waste sites – nearly 98 million
Serious breaches of permits and exemptions – 87 million
IllegaL Exports – 30 million
Illegal waste burning – 19 million
I will now look at a couple of these in a bit more detail.

10. RWRP Campaign Survey
Survey of 1000 SME’s in construction, agriculture and retail sectors:
The campaign has been heavily influenced by research we carried out to gauge awareness of Duty of Care amongst SME waste producing businesses
More than a third of construction businesses were unsure whether they completed Waste Transfer Notes (WTN)
A quarter of construction businesses did not always separate their waste
Only half of businesses stored WTNs for the required two years
More than a third of companies were not aware of the penalties
Importantly three quarters of those question look to Local Authorities for advice and guidance on waste Duty of care – also a higher percentage look to their waste management contractor. So important to emphasise the important role that LA’s have in promoting duty of care.

11. A Network of RWRP Ambassadors determined to raise awareness and tackle waste crime
48 ambassadors signed up – helping to raise awareness through their supply chains .
- a number of national organisations such as KBT and National trust , the FSB
- number of construction companies– redrow, Wilmot Dixon, Bam, Mace,
- Local Authorities and wide range of companies and charities from other sectors,.
The great thing abouthe Ambassadors Programme is that is enables us to get the message out about the campaign and the importance of comainace with Dutyof Care to a much wider audienc and critically top sectors that we mightmot normanlly be able to reach. For example we have been working with a number of companies in the construction sector to raise awareness in that sector through a number of events and through media coverage
We have just forces with the FSB to tap into the SME market
And some of our local authority ambassadors have used some our campaign materials to run their own awareness raising campaigns.
Please do get in touch if this is something your organisation might be interested in. I should emphasise that it is free to become an ambassador but you must sign up to a number of broad criteria committing to supporting the campaign by helping raise awareness of Duty of Care and the campaign itself

12. Thank you ! Alan Holmes Website: www.rightwasterightplace.com
Follow: @RWRP2016
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