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Following the revision of the Persistent Organic Pollutant (POPs) Regulations in 2019, the Environment Agency have updated their guidance for the assessment of household waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE).This new guidance explains that most household WEEE is now considered to be hazardous due to the presence of components that contain hazardous substances or POPs, see https://www.gov.uk/how-to-classify-different-types-of-waste/electronic-and-electrical-equipment. These components include:

• printed circuit boards
• plastic casings, cables and other components
• insulation form
• cooling agents
• flame retardants
• activated glass and screen phosphors
• cathode ray tubes
• capacitors
• Ni-Cd batteries

If the concentrations of hazardous substances, or POPs, in WEEE are over a certain amount the item will be classified as hazardous or POPs waste. If your WEEE is POPs waste you cannot reuse or recycle it.

This updated guidance is a major concern for the WEEE industry as items such as plastic casings, printers, printed circuit boards and cables will now need a hazardous waste consignment note. This will involve further associated costs for collection and treatment. Sites that are currently authorised to accept these waste types may need to vary their Environmental Permit to allow for the acceptance of the relevant hazardous List of Waste codes.

If you are concerned that this change might impact you but you are not sure, please feel free to get in touch for a no-obligation discussion.

Further guidance on the classification of WEEE components and wastes from their treatment can be found at: www.gov.uk/guidance/classify-some-waste-electrical-devices-components-and-wastes-from-their-treatment.
 

The Environment Agency have issued a position statement to say that they will allow the temporary storage of permitted waste on your site if your storage limits will be exceeded as a result of COVID-19 movement restrictions.

If you think you will need to make use of this position statement you must let the Environment Agency know before your limits are exceeded.

You must stop all waste acceptance if the additional waste storage will pose a risk to human health or the environment. Further conditions of this regulatory position can be found hereWe understand that the Environment Agency are due to publish similar regulatory positions on the following issues to www.gov.uk in the coming days:

• Environmental monitoring requirements,
• Duty of care requirements,
• Storing material on non-permitted sites,
• Technical competence management (TCM) attendance.

On January 31^st 2020 at 23:00 GMT, the United Kingdom (UK) officially ended 47 years of membership with the European Union (EU). We have now entered the “Implementation Phase” which shall run until the 31^st December 2020. This Phase will allow the UK to continue to operate under all EU Laws, while the UK Government finalise all UK Retained Law. Action and discussion of the proposed retained laws, namely the Environmental Bill and Resources and Waste Strategies, have so far been unsuccessful.

Prior to 2019, 11 new schemes and strategies were proposed however, 7 had not yet been consulted on before the end of 2019, including the Waste Framework Directive and Landfill Directives. Pressure is now on the government to implement a comprehensive suite of legislation to follow, within 11 short months.

Added to this are further items for consideration, such as the pertinent issue of climate change. Westbury Environmental will be following any proposed changes in the legislation keenly and how they may impact existing operators.

The UK refuse derived fuel (RDF) market faces a period of uncertainty going into 2020 which will impact many businesses across the UK. Sweden and the Netherlands are to introduce an ‘Energy from Waste’ tax with the aim of cutting CO2 emissions associated with the waste management industry. This is likely to increase costs for UK RDF exporters as Sweden and the Netherlands are two of the major end markets for UK RDF. 

The tax of 75Kr (£6) per tonne on “waste that is burnt” will become effective in Sweden from 1^st April 2020. However, the RDF tax of €31 per tonne in the Netherlands has come into force on 1^st January 2020. These taxes coupled with Brexit ensure that the UK RDF industry faces an uncertain future. 

There has been criticism of the new tax across the RDF industry with concerns that the move will actually increase overall emissions from waste management as a result of more waste being sent to landfill.

Westbury Environmental recently hosted their first successful seminar event Your Waste - Is It Hazardous?

Thanks to the great line-up of speakers & delegates who joined us to discuss how to correctly classify your waste and the consequences of getting it wrong.

Our event calendar for 2020 will be available soon, register your interest for future seminars by completing the enquiry form above.