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Waste: Don’t rubbish it

14 May 2010

Everybody knows that sending all waste to landfill is not going to help the environment in the long term.

When disposing of waste, businesses used to face the dilemma of doing what was right from a moral point of view, nothing more.

Now, though, the environmental regime is so heavily regulated that businesses must understand what they need to be doing with their waste in order to comply with their legal duties as well as their social and green sustainability policies.

Retailers are not only faced with getting rid of their own waste, but are also under legal duties to offer take back schemes to consumers who need to dispose of certain types of waste.

Duty of care

To prevent fly tipping, all businesses have a duty of care to ensure waste removed from their premises is properly disposed of.

This duty requires waste producers to keep their waste secure at all times whilst it remains on their site, and to ensure that whoever waste is passed to for disposal is authorised to deal with it.

Carriers of waste should be registered and, in order to discharge your duty of care, businesses should check such registrations and keep records of the waste disposal using waste transfer notes.

Hazardous waste

All types of premises that produce hazardous waste must register with the Environment Agency if they produce more than 500kg of hazardous waste per year. Hazardous waste does not just include the obvious examples, such as paint and aerosols, but also includes old computer equipment, printer toner, and fluorescent tube lighting.

Businesses should separate hazardous waste from general waste to ensure that it is correctly and safely disposed of.

Checks should be made on any waste removal company contracted to remove your waste to ensure they are authorised by the Environment Agency.

Consignment Notes are used to evidence the audit trail from producer of the waste to the end disposal. These notes should be kept for a minimum of three years along with a Hazardous Waste Register, which records all movements of hazardous waste.

Take back schemes

Not only do retailers have to deal with their own waste but they are also under a duty to take back certain types of waste from their consumers.

Retailers selling more than 32kg per year of batteries must offer a take back facility in their store – even if the batteries were not originally purchased from them.

Retailers who sell electrical and electronic equipment will also have to ensure that their customers can return their waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) free of charge.

Retailers can offer this take back service themselves or can join the Distributor Take-back Scheme by contributing financially to the provision of WEEE collection facilities by local authorities.

However, unlike the battery take back requirements, retailers only have to offer free take back of WEEE if the consumer buys new equipment similar to that they are disposing of.

With environmental regulation increasing, retailers should put in place robust procedures to ensure that their own and their consumers’ waste does not end up in the wrong hands.

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Hayley Saunders

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