The comparison was used to emphasise the need for more registrations and other changes as the Department prepares to reshape duty of care legislation because of a number of loopholes and weaknesses in the current system.
A new simplified duty of care governing waste is planned for April 2009 and is set to be accompanied by a massive education campaign.
Defra has confirmed that a consultation paper on proposed changes to the duty of care regulations is to be published by in May 2008. There will be amendments to various regulations including those governing waste carriers, waste consignments, brokers and the stop, search and seize powers available to the authorities.
The changes will include giving local authorities and the Environment Agency more powers to issue fixed penalty notices and measures to promote greater understanding of the requirements governing the movement of wastes.
Awareness
Explaining the rationale behind the consultation, Defra senior policy officer Andrew McIntosh, said: “We don't think there is anything fundamentally wrong with the duty of care but there needs to be greater awareness. Our research shows that 90% of small businesses and traders are not aware of the duty of care.”
Speaking at a Tyre Recovery Association meeting in Solihull, Mr McIntosh said that in a review of waste controls, Defra had been assessing a number of topics.
One area of concern was the registration procedures for waste carriers. This is likely to change in terms of costs, he said. “We are looking at a risk-based approach to registering waste carriers. At present a large fleet of vans will pay the same as one van we will have some proposals on this in the consultation.”
And, loopholes in the law are set to be tightened with a set of new offences. “At present,” said Mr McIntosh, “it is not an offence to provide false information on a waste carrier form”.
On registration of carriers, he said that not enough companies were registering even though “it is harder to get on a Blockbuster Video list that on to the Agency database.” Improvements are likely to be suggested to the registration process and this may also go as far as offering incentives for registration, such as allowing service providers to advertise on the Agency database.
Penalty
On fixed penalty notes, Mr McIntosh said that local authorities may even be given the option of setting the penalty levels themselves with input for this coming from Cabinet Office work on regulation. To date, he noted, the average fine in the courts tends to be about £500 for waste carrier offences and it is unlikely that the current maximum limit of £5,000 will be increased.
The tyre conference also heard that there are unlikely to be any further reporting requirements on tyres with there being little validity in any call for extra burdens on a single waste stream.
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