Duty of care
What is a waste holder?
A waste holder is anyone who currently has waste — the producer, the carrier, the site holding it, or the site treating it. The duty of care applies to each holder for as long as they hold it.
The idea of a holder is what makes the duty continuous. Waste always belongs to somebody, and that somebody is responsible for containing it, describing it, and passing it only to someone authorised.
It is why storage matters as much as movement. Waste escaping from a container on a site is a breach by whoever was holding it at the time, regardless of whose waste it originally was.
The chain of holders is what documentation records. A complete set of notes traces waste from producer to destination; a gap in it is a gap in the chain of responsibility.
What goes wrong in practice
- Containers overfilled or uncovered while waste is being held.
- Waste accepted without checking it matches what the note describes.
- A gap in the documented chain that nobody notices until it is asked for.