Waste legislation is something a lot of us don’t think about. After all, we just get our bins collected every week and go to the tip every now and again, right? Wrong.
There are laws in England for the creation, transport and disposal of waste within the European Union and for the movement of waste in and out of the EU.
The laws cover controlled waste, registration of carriers and brokers, landfill, duty of care, hazardous waste and packaging waste, just to name a few.
Another important part of waste legislation is the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) law, which requires that electronic equipment is disposed of properly. You can take old electrical equipment back to the retailer and they have a legal obligation to dispose of it responsibly.
How you can save money by being clued up on waste legislation
If you’re a business, you need to adhere to waste legislation, especially the WEEE regulations. You could be fined a lot of money if you don’t dispose of waste properly.
Businesses should pay for the collection and disposal of its waste or use a licensed facility. If a business is found to be disposing of waste through a household waste site, it could be fined or even face prosecution from its local authority or the Environmental agency.
And not only that – how would you like it if your local town looked like the pictures above?!
Police now use automatic number plate recognition and intelligence-led operations to track down small businesses that aren’t disposing of their waste correctly.
There was an operation called ‘Operation Rogue Trader’ that took place for a week in April, that was led by the police and trading standards with help from the DVLA, Environmental Agency, HM Revenue and Customs and the Border Force.
So if you don’t dispose of waste properly, the chances are you’ll get caught. Dispose of your waste responsibly and save your business from having to pay expensive and unnecessary fines.