Avoiding Waste-Management Prosecution

Naturally one of the many ways through which one seeks to build wealth is by operating a business, which only makes sense because you’re very unlikely to do so if all you’re doing is working a full-time job and have no plans of investing any of your money. It’s never as easy as just jumping in and then going from zero to profit on your first foray into the business world, something which seasoned businesspersons and entrepreneurs will be well aware of and be all too familiar with.

It’s great when things are going well and you are able to look into specialist machinery hire to help with all your industrial waste. However, when you are operating a physical business such as one which is in the construction industry, there are some rules and regulations you have to operate under so that you’re compliant.

Waste management comes to the fore as one area in which compliance is a must and there’s a bit of information you need to know if you’re to make sure not to be subjected to waste management prosecution:

May of 2016 saw the UK government update its guidance on what’s legally defined to be waste. This guidance can be used to make a determination on whether a specifically identified material is governed by certain waste-handling laws and whether or not it has reached the status of ‘end of waste’, meaning it’s no longer subject to waste laws.

Most of what is classified as waste material is subject to the Environmental Protection Act, which states that it’s the responsibility of businesses to produce, store, transport, and dispose of controlled waste in a manner that does not harm the environment. This is known as Duty of Care. The requirements set out thereof stipulate some standard practices around record-keeping, segregating, and storage of waste safely. It also stipulates who is authorized to deal with waste.

Keep in mind that the Duty of Care has no time limit. The whole management chain is accountable and it’s the responsibility of the business to make sure that whoever is tasked to handle its waste has the proper authorization and manages it correctly.

Going back to 2012, the Controlled Waste Regulations for the categorization of waste officially lists them as household, commercial and industrial waste, which is to be further categorized according to its place of production, the nature of the waste, and the activity which produced the waste.

The Hazardous Waste Directive of 2011 (European Waste Framework Directive) specifies additional monitoring, record-keeping, and control of hazardous waste, but also mandates for careful attention to be paid to the mixture of hazardous wastes with each other or their mixture with non-hazardous wastes.

April of 2016 subsequently saw the UK government simplifying its hazardous waste reporting for businesses in England, which eliminated the need for registration with the Environment Agency. Instead, businesses are required to produce a consignment note whenever they’re moving hazardous waste and use a unique identifier, be it a set of skips they use or in whichever other way they’re moving their waste. They are also required to make sure hazardous waste can be traced back to the business.

You can learn more from recycling and resources management service provider, Reconomy.

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