Under UK law, all businesses have a Duty of Care to ensure they produce, store, transport and dispose of their waste without harming the environment. One of their responsibilities is to complete Waste Transfer Notes (WTN) every time waste is passed from one party to another and keep them for at least two years.
But, the current system results in at least 25 million WTNs being produced a year with around 50 million pieces of paper being stored at any one time – something which many businesses say they find burdensome.
To address the problem, Defra announced in March 2012 that it would be seeking to slacken requirements surrounding WTNs as part of its Red Tape Challenge.
And now, it has has revealed that it will soon be seeking views on alternative ways for businesses to provide the information required when waste changes hands, by for instance allowing them to us other forms of evidence such as invoices.
In an update for local authorities, the Department said this week: The Red Tape Challenge identified that many small businesses find the production, completion and storage of Waste Transfer Notes burdensome. Therefore we will be looking for alternative ways for businesses to provide the information required when was changes hand, eg by allowing them to use other forms of evidence instead such as invoices.
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We plan to consult on changes to the Waste Transfer Note system during summer 2013.
The planned consultation, originally expected in March 2013 (see letsrecycle.com story), comes as the Environment Agency completes a groundbreaking electronic system for recording waste transfer, known as Electronic Duty of Care.
Due for launch in 2014, the system is expected to save businesses 5 million a year by allowing them to issue and record waste transfer online instead of the current paper-based approach.
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