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What is the
Duty of Care?
As a business, you have a legal duty to ensure that any waste
you produce is handled safely and in accordance with the law
as covered by The Environmental Protection (Duty of Care)
Regulations of 1991. This is the 'Duty of Care' and it applies
to anyone who produces, imports, carries, keeps, treats or
disposes of controlled waste from business or industry or
acts as a waste broker in this respect.
Controlled waste can be household, commercial,
trade or industrial waste. It can be from a house, school,
university, hospital, residential or nursing home, shop, office,
factory or any other trade or business. It may be solid or
liquid, scrap metal or a scrap car. It does not have to be
hazardous or toxic to be a controlled waste.
You are responsible for ensuring the safe
and suitable disposal or recovery of waste that you produce,
even after you have passed it on to another party such as
a waste contractor, scrap metal merchant, recycling company,
local council or skip hire company.
The Duty of Care has no time limit, and
extends until the waste has either been finally and properly
disposed of or fully recovered.
What Does it
Mean for You as a Business Owner or Manager?
You and/or your business have a legal
responsibility, a 'duty', to take all reasonable measures
to:
Prevent anyone keeping, depositing, disposing
of or recovering your 'controlled waste' without a waste management
licence or an exemption from the need for a licence. Ensure
that their waste management licence has not been suspended
or partially revoked and that they are not in breach of the
conditions of that licence or exemption.
Stop materials escaping from your control
or the control of anyone else by packaging it appropriately
and robustly.
Ensure that waste is only transferred to
an authorised person. Make sure that a person or business
is authorised to deal with your particular type of waste.
Ensure that the waste being transferred
is accompanied by a written description that will enable anyone
receiving it to dispose of it or handle it in accordance with
his or her own Duty of Care.
In basic terms,
you should ensure that:
- All waste is stored and disposed of
responsibly.
- Waste is only handled or dealt with
by individuals or businesses that are authorised to deal
with it.
- A record is kept of all waste received
or transferred through a system of signed Waste Transfer
Notes (WTN).
The Durham Company operates under the Waste
Management Licensing regulations for the safe collection,
disposal and recycling of trade and commercial waste.
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