OTish - small traders, Waste carrying licence?

[A.Lee]

I've just started up myself as a handyman/maintenance and gardening services. Obviously I will have some rubbish, building waste, and green waste to dump at some point. I've rang the Council, I need a permit to use the tip with my van, will need to be weighed on/off, then pay £61/tonne for dumping. No problem, I expected that.

But then he also said I'd need a Waste Carriers Licence, which is £140 for 3 years (no, you cant do it annually). Now this is annoying me. Apparently, this gives me the right to transport someone elses rubbish. There are no other perceived benefits to it. Basically, they are just taxing me £140 for nothing. I can now see why there is so much fly-tipping in country lanes, going down to the tip, and paying for the weight you chuck away seems eminently reasonable. Applying for 2 different permits, paying for one of them, as well as waiting the expected 3 weeks before you receive it back, well, if you werent concientious, why bother going through that when you could go out late at night and dump your stuff, with little chance of being caught.

So, do I bother registering for these permits, or do I just go down at the weekend, with the small amount of waste I get, in the back of my car, and dump it without paying a thing? Ta Alan.

[AJH]

Yes but note there are exemptions for waste from plants (phytomass) if the waste results from an operation one has planned and executed oneself, even as a commercial activity. No exemptions cover transport of building waste nor is the local authority mandated to accept it whether arising from DIY or commercial activity. In fact many civic amenities sites will accept rubble from DIY activity to avoid it being mixed with the residual household waste as it is inert, non putrescible, and hence can be land filled more cheaply.

Your choice

AJH

[Cicero]

=================================== People here frequently point out (quite correctly)that any business has overheads. The two licences you're paying for are just two of the many overheads that your business will have to budget for. Almost certainly they'll be tax deductible so the actual cost to you will be minimal.

I would suggest that you query "......£61/tonne for dumping" to make sure what that means. Do they charge £61/tonne for a part of a tonne or do they charge pro rata? Obviously, if it's £61/tonne or part of a tonne you'll need to save your waste until you have a tonne. In any case the costs will be borne by your customers by way of your pricing structure.

Cic.

[meow2222]

For most jobs you can bag it and leave it there for the binmen

NT

[The Medway Handyman]

I always tell the customer that I can't take waste away and they will have to make their own arrangements. Our local council will collect a surprising amount of stuff free of charge.

[Dwayne & Angela]

Unfortunatly councils tend to take good ideas and totally ruin them, they all do it no exceptions. The biggest problem when they ruin these good ideas is that they make it harder for legitimate business and/or ideas to succeed. your case for example: a rogue trader who is not going to bother with licences and legal tipping is going to be able to undercut your prices by a long way and for the most part even when they get caught they just get a fine which does not even come close to the costs they have saved by dumping other peoples rubbish at the side of the road. Not that I am suggesting for a minute that you should do this. another classic example is the recycling craze thats sweeping through councils, yes its a good idea we should all be doing our bit. Then the councils start imposing their own brand of idiocy and say to their employees if a bin contain something we dont accept leave a tag to explain. Then you remove the offending article/s and ring them to send a van back around thus making all the recycling you did pointless. stupidity = councils