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This guidance is for businesses that import, produce, store, treat or dispose of waste. It is also for businesses that transfer waste to others to deal with on their behalf.
IWMS work with businesses to ensure that all of their ‘duty of care’ requirements are fulfilled. We only work with contractors who are legally authorised to transport and dispose of waste and ensure that all appropriate documentation is completed to ensure full compliance with this legal requirement.
- What is the duty of care?
- Does the duty of care apply to you?
- Duty of care – what do you have to do?
- Storing and disposing of your waste responsibly
- Who is allowed to deal with your waste?
- Records for receiving and transferring waste – waste transfer notes
What is the duty of care?
As a business, you have a duty to ensure that any waste you produce is handled safely and within the law. This is your 'duty of care'. It applies to anyone who produces, imports, transports, stores, treats or disposes of controlled waste from business or industry.
Commercial and industrial (including hazardous/special wastes) are classified as ‘controlled waste’. You must check that anyone that you pass your waste on to is legally authorised to take it. If you don’t check that they are authorised to take your waste and it is illegally disposed of, you could be held responsible.
People you pass your waste on to include:
- waste contractors
- scrap metal merchants
- recycling companies
- your local council
- skip hire companies.
The duty of care has no time limit. It extends until the waste has either been finally disposed of or fully recovered.
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Does the duty of care apply to you?
If you have a business, the duty of care applies to you.
Commercial, industrial wastes (including hazardous/special wastes) are classified as ‘controlled waste’. The duty of care applies to all controlled waste. This means that waste materials produced as part of your business or within your workplace are regulated by law.
If you produce or deal with waste that has certain hazardous properties, you will also have to comply with the hazardous/special waste regulations.
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Duty of care – what do you have to do?
You must ensure that:
- you store and dispose of all your waste responsibly
- your waste is only handled or dealt with by people or businesses that are legally authorised to do so
- you keep records of all waste that you transfer or receive for at least two years.
You have a responsibility to:
- Stop anyone storing, disposing of or recovering your waste unless they have an environmental permit (England and Wales), a waste management licence (Northern Ireland and Scotland), or an exemption. Check their permit, licence or exemption to make sure that they are within its conditions.
- Package all waste materials appropriately and robustly to stop them escaping from your, or anyone else’s, control.
- Ensure that your waste is only transferred to a person or business authorised to deal with your particular type of waste.
- Ensure that the waste being transferred is accompanied by a written description that will enable anyone receiving it to dispose of it or handle it safely and appropriately.
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Storing and disposing of your waste responsibly
All waste has the potential to pollute the environment if you do not handle or store it properly.
Storing waste
You must store all waste materials safely and securely in suitable containers such as, wheeled bins, skips, Intermediate Bulk Containers (IBCs) or drums.
Ensure that any containers you use are in good condition and that they are clearly labelled. If you reuse containers make sure that you remove any old labelling.
Separate materials that are incompatible, such as chemicals that may react together if a leak occurs.
You must ensure that waste materials cannot blow away and that pollutants cannot leach from the waste into the ground. If you store waste in skips or other similar containers, ensure that they are covered or netted where necessary to prevent loose and lightweight material from blowing away. Consider storing wastes under cover before you dispose of them.
You must prevent liquid wastes from escaping into drains, watercourses or surrounding ground. Store wastes on impermeable surfaces that are contained within a secondary containment system (SCS). Ideally this should be a bund capable of containing the contents of the storage containers, or a drain to a sealed pit that can contain them.
Ensure that your storage facilities are secure against vandalism or other outside interference. You are responsible for any pollution caused by materials that originate from your site.
Handling waste
Give all employees and contractors working on your premises instructions about how to handle and dispose of each type of waste that might be produced.
Regularly check that your employees and contractors are following these instructions. You are responsible for the actions of your employees.
Transporting waste
You must only transport waste in suitable and secure containers and vehicles, to prevent waste from being spilled. Suitable containers include tankers, skips, IBCs and drums.
You should cover or net loose materials to prevent them being blown out of the vehicle
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Who is allowed to deal with your waste?
You must ensure that anyone removing waste from your business either:
- has an environmental permit (England and Wales)
- has a waste management licence (Northern Ireland and Scotland)
- is registered as a carrier of controlled waste
- is exempt from registration as a carrier of controlled waste, or
- is from a waste collection authority in England and Wales, a district council in Northern Ireland, or a waste disposal authority in Scotland.
You should ask for proof that an individual or business is authorised to handle or transport your waste.
Your responsibility for your waste does not end when the waste carrier removes it from your site. Your responsibility extends until the waste has either been finally and properly disposed of or fully recovered. You must ensure that the waste is disposed of at a suitably licensed or exempt facility.
Waste carriers
A registered carrier should be able to produce a certificate of registration or a certified copy if you ask to see it. This certificate will show when their registration expires. Be aware that a photocopy does not provide evidence of registration – you should ask to see the original or a certified copy. You can take a photocopy for your records, date it and write on it that you have seen the original.
IWMS is a fully licenced waste carrier and broker and therefore an authorised body to recieve and handle all controlled wastes.
IWMS Waste Carriers and brokers registration
Waste management sites
Ensure that anyone who treats, stores or disposes of your business waste has an appropriate environmental permit, waste management licence, or exemption certificate.
In Northern Ireland and Scotland, some waste disposal or recovery activities (eg larger landfill sites) are regulated under pollution prevention and control (PPC). In these cases, the site or business will hold a PPC permit instead of a waste management licence or exemption. You should ask to see a copy of the licence, exemption certificate, or PPC permit.
If you are not sure, check with your environmental regulator (The Environment Agency) that the appropriate permit, licence or exemption is in place.
When you look at an environmental permit, a waste management licence, an exemption or PPC permit, always check that the site is authorised to take all the types of waste materials that you are planning to send there.
If you return containers or other materials to a supplier, check if they are being reprocessed or disposed of. If they are being reprocessed or disposed of, check that your supplier is a registered waste carrier. Ask to see their certificate of registration.
You should also check that they hold an environmental permit (England and Wales) or a waste management licence (Northern Ireland and Scotland) if applicable. Ask to see a copy of the permit, licence or exemption certificate, or check with your environmental regulator.
You should repeat these checks regularly, as registrations and authorisations can expire or be revoked.
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Records for receiving and transferring waste (waste transfer notes)
What is a waste transfer note?
A waste transfer note (WTN) is a document which must accompany any transfer of waste between different holders. The purpose of a WTN is to allow other people who handle your waste to know what they are dealing with so that they can manage it safely and properly.
You must create a WTN for each load of waste that leaves your site. For repetitive transfers, you can use a 'season ticket', i.e. one transfer note will cover multiple transfers over a given period of time of up to 12 months. However, you can only use a season ticket if the parties involved in each transfer are the same and the description of the waste transferred remains the same.
What information should a WTN contain?
The WTN must contain enough information about the waste to enable anyone coming into contact with it to handle it safely, and either dispose of it or allow it to be recovered within the law. If you don’t give enough information you may be prosecuted.
On all Waste Transfer Notes, you should describe the quantity and types of each different waste being transferred on the WTN, both in words and by using the appropriate codes in European Waste Catalogue (EWC) (Adobe Acrobat Reader® is required to view this document, click here to download it).
The WTN should also include details of how the waste is contained, ie whether it is loose or packaged. If the waste is packaged, then the WTN should include details of the type of container.
Who needs to sign the WTN?
You should never rely on waste carriers or waste management contractors to describe your waste for you on WTNs. As the producer, you are in the best position to describe your waste accurately. It is not acceptable to use non-specific terms, eg 'general waste' or 'inert waste'.
Both you and the waste carrier must sign the WTN before the waste leaves your site.
If you transport waste yourself, you and the operator of the waste management site who you hand your waste over to, must sign the WTN. If you use a waste broker, you must ensure that they are registered.
Waste carriers, brokers and dealers
You must keep copies of all WTNs for at least two years. This is your record of the type and quantity of waste you transferred, how it was packaged, when you transferred it, where it went and who you transferred it to. These are all requirements of the duty of care.
Periodic checks (audits) will help you to ensure that your wastes are handled correctly from the moment they leave your premises to the final point of disposal or recovery, and prove that you are complying with your duty of care.
Documentation for hazardous/special waste
The transfer documentation for hazardous/special waste is called a 'consignment note'. If your waste has hazardous properties, you may need to treat it as hazardous/special waste. In this case, you need to complete a consignment note to comply with your duty of care. The consignment note must contain similar information to a WTN. A separate WTN is not required.
Waste that is defined by the European Waste Catalogue (EWC) as hazardous can only go to a waste treatment facility that is licensed to receive hazardous waste.
You must ensure that wastes that you produce irregularly (eg redundant materials, wastes from cleaning up spills) are declared on WTNs. Some of these wastes may have to be handled as hazardous/special waste.
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