The words the duty of care is written in. Carriers, codes, notes, permits and exemptions — what each term actually means, what it obliges a waste holder to do, and what the Environment Agency finds when the paperwork does not match the load.
Duty of care
Waste duty of care
The waste duty of care is the legal obligation on anyone who produces, carries, keeps, treats or disposes of waste to make sure it is handled properly and passed only to someone authorised to receive it..
Waste hierarchy
The waste hierarchy ranks how waste should be dealt with, in order of preference: prevention, preparing for re-use, recycling, other recovery, and disposal last.
Waste producer
A waste producer is whoever's activity produces waste.
Waste holder
A waste holder is anyone who currently has waste — the producer, the carrier, the site holding it, or the site treating it.
Waste prevention
Waste prevention is not producing waste in the first place.
Preparing for re-use
Preparing for re-use is checking, cleaning or repairing items so they can be used again for their original purpose, without any other pre-processing.
Recycling
Recycling is reprocessing waste into products, materials or substances.
Other recovery
Other recovery is putting waste to use in a way that is not recycling — most commonly recovering energy from it.
Disposal
Disposal is dealing with waste in a way that obtains nothing from it — principally landfill, and incineration without energy recovery.
Documents & codes
Waste transfer note
A waste transfer note is the document recording a transfer of non-hazardous waste between two parties.
Hazardous waste consignment note
A hazardous waste consignment note is the document that must accompany a movement of hazardous waste.
EWC code
An EWC code is the six-digit code from the List of Waste that classifies a waste type.
Waste classification
Waste classification is the process of determining what a waste is, which List of Waste code applies, and whether it is hazardous — based on its origin, composition and hazardous properties..
Controlled waste
Controlled waste is household, industrial and commercial waste, and it is the category the main waste duties apply to.
Commercial waste
Commercial waste is waste from premises used for trade, business, sport, recreation or entertainment.
Trade waste agreement
A trade waste agreement is the contract between a business and a collector setting out what waste will be collected, how often, in what containers, and at what price..
Hazardous waste
Hazardous waste is waste with properties that make it harmful to health or the environment.
Clinical waste
Clinical waste is waste from healthcare and similar activities that may pose a risk of infection or contains medicines or sharps.
Inert waste
Inert waste is waste that does not undergo significant physical, chemical or biological change — typically concrete, brick, stone and uncontaminated soil.
Construction and demolition waste
Construction and demolition waste is waste arising from building, refurbishment and demolition.
Permits & registration
Waste carrier registration
Waste carrier registration is the authorisation a business needs to transport waste.
Environmental permit
An environmental permit is the authorisation a site needs to carry out regulated waste activities such as treating, storing or disposing of waste.
Waste exemption
A waste exemption allows a low-risk waste activity to be carried out without a full environmental permit, provided it is registered and stays within the limits and conditions set for that exemption..
Technically competent manager
A technically competent manager is the qualified person a permitted waste site must have in place to oversee its operations.
End of waste
End of waste is the point at which something that was waste stops being waste and becomes a product.
By-product
A by-product is material arising from a process that was not the primary aim of that process but that is not waste, because it meets defined tests about certainty of use and lawfulness..
Waste broker
A waste broker arranges the disposal or recovery of waste on behalf of others without taking possession of it.
Producer responsibility
Producer responsibility places obligations on businesses that place products on the market to fund or arrange the recovery of those products when they become waste — packaging, electricals and batteries among them..
Packaging waste
Packaging waste regulations oblige businesses that handle or supply packaging above defined thresholds to report the packaging they place on the market and to contribute to the cost of managing it..
WEEE
WEEE is waste electrical and electronic equipment.
Operations & enforcement
Weighbridge ticket
A weighbridge ticket records the weight of a vehicle and its load at a site, producing the net weight of waste delivered.
Fly-tipping
Fly-tipping is the illegal deposit of waste on land not licensed to receive it.
Material recovery facility
A material recovery facility, or MRF, is a permitted site that receives mixed recyclable waste and separates it into material streams for onward sale to reprocessors..
Refuse-derived fuel
Refuse-derived fuel is residual waste processed into a fuel — shredded, dried and with recyclable and non-combustible material removed — so it can be burned for energy in facilities built for it..
Landfill
Landfill is the permitted deposit of waste in or on land.
Pre-treatment
Pre-treatment is treating waste before it is landfilled — physically, thermally, chemically or biologically — so that its volume or its hazardous nature is reduced.
Landfill tax
Landfill tax is a tax on waste disposed of at a landfill site, charged per tonne at a standard rate and a lower rate for qualifying inert material.
Waste transfer station
A waste transfer station is a permitted site where waste is received, sorted and bulked before onward movement.
Collection round
A collection round is the planned sequence of collections a vehicle makes in a shift.
Simpler Recycling
Simpler Recycling is the reform standardising which materials must be collected separately for recycling in England, from businesses as well as households, so that arrangements no longer differ by area..
Enforcement notice
An enforcement notice requires an operator to remedy a breach of an environmental permit or a waste regulation within a period.
A–Z
- By-product
- Clinical waste
- Collection round
- Commercial waste
- Construction and demolition waste
- Controlled waste
- Disposal
- End of waste
- Enforcement notice
- Environmental permit
- EWC code
- Fly-tipping
- Hazardous waste
- Hazardous waste consignment note
- Inert waste
- Landfill
- Landfill tax
- Material recovery facility
- Other recovery
- Packaging waste
- Pre-treatment
- Preparing for re-use
- Producer responsibility
- Recycling
- Refuse-derived fuel
- Simpler Recycling
- Technically competent manager
- Trade waste agreement
- Waste broker
- Waste carrier registration
- Waste classification
- Waste duty of care
- Waste exemption
- Waste hierarchy
- Waste holder
- Waste prevention
- Waste producer
- Waste transfer note
- Waste transfer station
- WEEE
- Weighbridge ticket
More terms are being added. These pages explain what the words mean; they are not a substitute for advice from a competent waste adviser or your technically competent manager.