Waste Regulation and Crime What’s next for waste and resource operators?
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n the last edition of ROJ, I summarised the issues around waste crime and entrenched poor performance in a small part of the waste industry and the action being taken to tackle it. By the time you read this we
may have seen the next Government consultation on measures to tackle waste crime and be preparing our responses to it! Widely touted as ‘Waste Crime Consultation 2’, what might we expect or want to see in it….
T ere has been widespread abuse of some of the exemptions from the need for an environmental permit, particularly those involving the treatment of construction, demolition and excavation waste and the spreading of waste on land to confer agricultural benefi t. So it would be no surprise to see either a toughening up of the rules around those exemptions and/or a lowering of the thresholds above which operators will need a permit. T is would likely involve some transitional period aſt er which some of those currently relying on a registered exemption will need to apply for an environmental permit with the additional controls that brings. Such a move may assist but we are still leſt with the problem that the regulator does not adequately police and is not suffi ciently funded to fulfi l its duties to police the remaining exempt waste operations. Exemptions may thus remain the ‘legitimate’ veil of cowboy operators for their unlawful activities!
We await some further enhancements to the regulators’ enforcement powers, particularly in respect to stopping rogue operators from just applying again for a permit or registering an exemption or as a waste carrier. T ere have also been calls to strengthen powers in respect of the Duty of Care regime.
T e main outstanding government commitment though is to better enshrine the operator competence requirements of environmental permitting into legislation. Operator competence is currently described in Chapter 9 of DEFRA’s Environmental Permitting Core Guidance. T e guidance says that when determining an application, the regulator should take into account the adequacy of the operator’s management systems, which includes;
1. Technical competence;
2. Record of compliance with previous regulatory requirements; and
3. Financial competence.
T e guidance makes clear that operator competence can be considered by the regulator at any time and if not satisfi ed the regulator can revoke a permit.
Notwithstanding the guidance, the Environment Agency is not routinely checking throughout the lifetime of the site, whether operators are technically competent through one of the two approved competence schemes. As a result, the Agency cannot say how many permitted waste facilities do or do not have technically competent management. From limited Agency surveys, it has been estimated
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