RECORDKEEPING > Details

Wastes that are identified as ‘Hazardous’ are tracked by your Environmental Regulator through a consignment note system to ensure that they are responsibly managed from their point of origin until they reach a suitably licensed or exempt facility to be recovered or disposed.

Hazardous Waste Regulations 2005

Under the Hazardous Waste Regulations, any premise where hazardous waste is produced or removed must be registered with the Environmental Regulator. While you no longer need to pre-notify wastes that are removed (or consigned) a consignment note must be completed. This includes a unique consignment code, an accurate description of the waste (quantity, nature, origin) and where relevant the destination, frequency of collection, mode of transport and treatment method of the waste. Copies of the consignment notes must be kept in a register for at least 2 years.

Full details of the requirements for record keeping of Hazardous Wastes can be viewed here.


Duty of Care

The Environmental Protection (Duty of Care) Regulations 1991 (as amended) and in Northern Ireland the Controlled Waste (Duty of Care) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2002 are relevant to this Management Guideline.

As a business, you have a duty to ensure that any waste you produce is handled safely and in accordance with the law (see below). This is the ‘Duty of Care’ and it applies to anyone who produces, imports, carries, keeps, treats or disposes of controlled waste from business or industry or acts as a waste broker in this respect.

You are responsible for ensuring the safe and proper disposal or recovery of waste that you produce, even after you have passed it on to another party such as a waste contractor, scrap metal merchant, recycler, local council or skip hire company.

The Duty of Care has no time limit, and extends until the waste has either been finally and properly disposed of or fully recovered.

What does it mean for me?

You and/or your business have a ‘duty’ to take all reasonable measures to:

1. Prevent anyone keeping, depositing, disposing of or recovering your ‘controlled waste’ without a waste management licence or an exemption from the need for a licence. Ensure that their waste management licence has not been suspended or partially revoked and that they are not in breach of the conditions of that licence or exemption.
2. Stop materials escaping from your control or the control of anyone else by packaging it appropriately and robustly.
3. Ensure that waste is only transferred to an authorised person. Make sure that a person or business is authorised to deal with your particular type of waste.
4. 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 in accordance with his or her own Duty of Care