Business waste: Your waste, your responsibility

Every business which imports, stores, treats, processes, transports, recycles or disposes of controlled waste must comply with the duty of care regulations.

If you have a trade contract with us we will send you a controlled waste transfer note annually so that you comply with the above legislation.

There are legal requirements for managing your waste efficiently and safely. By meeting these requirements your business will avoid enforcement action and may cut costs.

These laws prevent the environment from being polluted and encourage more sustainable management of waste. Some legislation applies to all business waste and some to particular types of waste.

As a business, you have a legal responsibility to ensure that you produce, store, transport and dispose of your business waste without harming the environment. This is called your duty of care.

The duty of care has no time limit. You are specifically responsible for your waste from when you produce it until you have transferred it to an authorised person. If you think that your waste is not being managed correctly you must take action to check and prevent this.

You must:

• store and transport your waste appropriately and securely - see the pages in this guide on how to store waste correctly and transporting waste
• check that your waste is transported and handled by people or businesses that are authorised to do so - see the page in this guide on how to check your waste is dealt with correctly
• complete waste transfer notes to document and describe all waste you transfer, and keep them as a record for at least two years - see the page in this guide on how to complete waste transfer notes

Check your waste carrier is registered

You must ensure that anyone who handles your waste is authorised to do so. People who may collect your waste include:

• waste contractors
• scrap metal merchants
• recycling businesses
• your local authority
• skip hire businesses.

You must check that anyone who collects and transports your waste is a registered carrier of controlled waste. You need to keep evidence of this so you can prove you have checked if necessary.

Waste carriers should have a certificate of registration or a certified copy of it, which shows when their registration expires. Some waste carriers will have a letter confirming their registration instead of a certificate.

 You can also check the registration of a waste carrier by:

• checking the Environment Agency's online register - )
• phoning the Environment Agency Helpline on 03708 506 506 to confirm a valid registration.

Pre-treatment regulations

Under the pre-treatment regulations, your business is obliged to ensure that a proportion of your waste is 'treated' before disposal. This is done either by separating various wastes for recycling or sending it to a sorting facility. A business separating their paper and card for recycling from their other waste would be deemed to have satisfied the pre-treatment requirements.

For more on the pre-treatment of business waste, see .