The ‘Right Waste, Right Place’ campaign aims to provide ‘practical’ information for companies, partnerships, family businesses and sole traders to comply with waste legislation and tackle waste crime.
The campaign suggests an estimated 56% of UK businesses are not complying with the law on how waste should be produced, carried, disposed of and treated, 94% of which were small and medium-sized enterprises.
The initiative is supported by a number of organisations, including:
- The Chartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM)
- Environmental Services Association Education Trust
- The Federation of Small Businesses
- NFU
- Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee (LARAC)
- Suez
- Travis Perkins
- URoC
- Veolia
The ESA-managed campaign centres on an interactive website which shows small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) where their waste should go. The site includes sections titled ‘What is Duty of Care?’ ‘What do I need to do?’ and ‘How do I do it?’.
For queries regarding the campaign, businesses are urged to write to PPS Group – a Manchester-based PR firm whose clients include Biffa, Suez, Veolia and Peel Environmental.
‘Serious’
Sam Corp, Head of Regulation at the ESA, said: “The number of organisations actively involved with this project, representing a broad range of sectors, shows just how serious an issue Duty of Care compliance is. Very few organisations want to actively flout the law, but most are simply not informed about what they have to do.
“Unfortunately being uninformed is no protection from the law, and we believe that more companies will find themselves exposed to prosecution unless they take the right steps to comply. The right Waste, right Place campaign is designed to help fill the very evident knowledge gap, especially with SMEs.”
Right Waste, Right Place has already received £95,000 from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs via the Environment Agency for the first phase including the development of the new website.
It follows the department’s revised Code of Practice setting out how waste producers and companies in England and Wales should manage waste materials responsibly.
However the 13-page document replaced a much longer, 60-page version of the guidance, which led some professional users to criticise it as “too complicated” for those unfamiliar with waste legislation but “too basic” for waste companies and their advisers (see letsrecycle.com story).
Second phase
In January, CIWM announced that it would be contributing nearly £50,000 to the initiative to support the second phase of the scheme – which is due to be rolled out in June.
This will take the form of a series of sector-specific campaigns aiming to promote best practice on waste.
Register for free to comment