The Environmental Services Association (ESA), which represents UK waste management companies, says the proposals appear to strike a good balance between reducing unnecessary bureaucracy and protecting the environment.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) launched its proposals to cut red tape in the environmental sector on Monday (March 19), after spending almost a year identifying areas where it could make improvements (see letsrecycle.com story).
Key amongthem areplans to free businesses from having to fill in unnecessary waste transfer notes by allowing them to use other forms of evidence instead, such as invoices.
“We particularly welcome the proposals to streamline environmental permitting and increase its alignment with the planning regime”
Sam Corp, ESA
Meanwhile, guidance on recording hazardous waste disposal will be simplified and companies will also be given the flexibility to decide the order of their planning and environmental permitting, so that if they think one application could, they can get a decision on that first before proceeding with the other.
Other proposed changes include a review of the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) system to ensure producers do not pay more towards the cost of recycling than they need to, including a possible new central allocation system for local authority sites to help the schemes fully align collections with their members obligations.
Permitting
Responding to the announcement, ESAs head of regulation, Sam Corp, said: The announcement seems to have a struck a good balance between protecting vital environmental standards and reducing unnecessary regulation. We particularly welcome the proposals to streamline environmental permitting and increase its alignment with the planning regime.
We will be looking carefully at the proposals for Waste Transfer Notes (WTNs), to ensure that any alternative system of recording waste movements does not make life easier for the minority who deliberately flout waste law. The proposed electronic system of WTNs may be more important in reducing red tape, and is a project we have been working on with the Environment Agency.
We will also be looking carefully at the proposed simplification of some hazardous waste regulation, as this is an area where proper enforcement of rigorous regulation is vital.
EIC
Support for the proposals also came from the Environmental Industries Commission, the trade association for the UKs environmental technology and services industry.
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EIC executive chair, Adrian Wilkes, said: EIC is pleased that Defras response to the Environment Theme of the Red Tape Challenge has not seen the wholesale removal of those regulations which underpin the nations environmental wellbeing, and the economic growth of the environmental technologies and services industry.
Defras announcement is the beginning and not the end of what will be a process with long-term ramifications. EIC has never been a fan of red tape or unnecessarily regulatory burden, but we remain vigilant to any changes that can potentially undermine environmental protection or the UKs economic competitiveness.
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