The Waste (England and Wales) Regulations 2011

The following is a legal update from Catherine:

The Waste (England and Wales) Regulations 2011 (finally!) came into force at the end of March, and implement changes to waste legislation made by the Revised Waste Framework Directive, as well as making long-awaited changes to the waste carriers and brokers regime. If you have any sort of dealings with waste as a producer, carrier or treatment/disposal facility (so pretty much everyone!), then read on, and make yourself aware of the changes:

The waste hierarchy has now been given legal effect, rather than merely being a principle. From October 2011 there will be a declaration on WTNs and HWCNs that companies have applied the waste hierarchy.

SIC codes will have to be included on WTNs as well as HWCNs – again, this won’t take effect until October 2011.

For new environmental permits, they will contain conditions which state that operators will have to apply the waste management hierarchy (such conditions will be added to existing permits when they are reviewed).

New category of waste “dealer” = those who use an agent to buy and sell waste

New 2 tier system of registration for carriers, brokers and dealers:

Upper tier carrier or broker:

If you carry/broker/deal in other people’s controlled waste (unless you fall under a lower tier)

If you carry/broker/deal in your own construction and demolition waste

Existing carriers and brokers won’t have to do anything (and dealer will be automatically added to existing registration)

Lasts for 3 years as existing registration does

Fee for registration

Lower tier (referred to in the Regs as “specified persons”:

If you carry/broker/deal in animal by-products, waste from a mine or a quarry or waste from premises used for agriculture

If you carry/broker/deal in other people’s controlled waste and you are a waste collection, disposal or regulation authority or a charity or voluntary organisation (i.e. charities are no longer exempt) – those that are currently registered as exempt will automatically be transferred to the lower tier

If you normally and regularly carry controlled waste produced by your own business (other than construction or demolition waste) by end of December 2013

Registration lasts indefinitely

Free registration

A single registration will cover carrier/broker/dealer. In order to simplify the transition, the EA will automatically consider all registered carriers as carriers and dealers and all registered brokers as brokers and dealers.

Some changes to hazardous waste = a new category, H13 Sensitizing, will be added to the list of properties defining waste as hazardous (the former category H13 now becomes H15). This means that some previously non-hazardous wastes may be reclassified as hazardous wastes e.g. ecotoxicity added to the properties that can define a leachate as hazardous.

The Regs explicitly state that transfer notes can be provided electronically.

From January 2015, a duty is placed on anyone collecting waste paper, metal, plastic or glass must ensure that where these waste streams have been separately collected, they are not mixed with other waste or other material with different properties.