Duty of care
What is a waste producer?
A waste producer is whoever's activity produces waste. The producer classifies it, describes it accurately, and is the first holder in the chain the duty of care runs along.
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<img src="https://wasteoptix.co.uk/glossary/waste-producer/diagram.svg" alt="waste producer — diagram from WasteOptix" width="880" height="620" loading="lazy">
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<a href="https://wasteoptix.co.uk/glossary/waste-producer">What is a waste producer?</a> — diagram by
<a href="https://wasteoptix.co.uk">WasteOptix</a>
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</figure>Producing waste is the point at which most of the decisions that matter are made: what it is, whether it is hazardous, whether it is segregated, and who is asked to take it. Everything downstream inherits those decisions.
The duty does not end at the gate. A producer who hands waste to somebody unregistered, or who describes it in a way that causes it to be mishandled, remains liable for having failed to take reasonable steps.
Where a contractor produces waste on a client's site, who the producer is can be a genuine question, and it is worth settling in the contract rather than at the point somebody is asked to sign a note.
What goes wrong in practice
- Assuming the contractor who removes the waste becomes responsible for it.
- Describing waste generically because the producer does not know what is in it.
- Producer responsibility unassigned in contracts, so nobody has classified anything.