Waste permits/regulations for tradespeople?

[YAPH]

Anyone know what the position is with regard to registering or getting a waste permit or whatever one needs to do? I keep hearing horror stories about the Environment Agency having draconian powers to sieze the vans of tradespeople carrying any sort of waste without a permit. Googling for info I find NetRegs - "Do you need an environmental permit?"

only talks about storing or processing waste, not transporting it, which I suspect may be where the necessity for a permit comes in.

The sort of waste I'm talking about is plumbing offcuts and old copper, brassware, lead and steel for recycling; plastics, wood, cardboard, maybe old tiles and bits of plasterboard & stuff like that which I might take away from a job (some of it inside my vacuum cleaner!) rather than leaving for the householder to dispose of, that sort of thing.

[The Medway Handyman]

Some info here mate, but like all Guvmint legislation its not in English as she is spoke

leave everything with the client, having specified thats what I will be doing in advance. Ring your local council.

[A.Lee]

I went into this in some depth last year. In the end, I didnt bother with the Waste Transfer Licence. To carry ANY waste away from a job, you need the Waste Transfer Licence. This costs £140 for 3 years (may have gone up since). You then need to register at your local tip, or, a private tip that will allow you to drop stuff off (for a fee of course). The local tip wanted a minimal admin fee to register (£5 or so), then, the killer, they wanted £70 per tonne to dump there. Minimum of half a tonne charge. So, £35 to drop 4 or 5 bags of rubbish off.

You can see why there is so much fly-tipping, as they make it so expensive to legally dump stuff. I had a debate with one of the Council workers about this ridiculous charge of £35 to drop a few things off, they werent interested, and just gave the usual talk, that if you are caught carrying waste, then you will be fined etc.

You do collect your scrap for weighing in? Anything else, either ask the customer to get rid of it, or take your car round to pick it up another time, as cars are never stopped in random Council checks. Alan.

[YAPH]

That just passes the buck (the duty of care) to the customer as they have a duty of care to dispose of your waste (which they wouldn't if it were their own). Actually doing the self-assessment -

- it doesn't seem too bad:

""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

You have a responsibility to ensure that any waste you produce is handled safely and within the law. This is your duty of care.

You must check that anyone that you pass your waste on to is authorised to take it.

You could save your business money by reducing the amount of waste that you produce. Recycling your waste will also improve your environmental performance.

You must make sure that any waste electrical or electronic equipment is treated, recycled or disposed of in an environmentally sound way.

You might need a waste management licence or a registered exemption.

As you do not carry out any waste activities other than disposing of your own waste, you do not require a waste management licence.

""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

So there you have it: I don't need a waste management licence. Or maybe I do. Well I'm glad that's cleared up.

[andrew]

You still need a licence to convey it and I don't believe there are exemptions for builders' waste as there are for other trades.

AJH

[YAPH]

Yup, that's most of the "waste" that I might be carrying.

Apart from cardboard and plastic wrappers from new stuff I've installed it's likely to be sweepings from the floor in a dustpan or bucket or whetever's inside the vac. Occasionally it might be a rubble-bagfull. Mostly it goes in the customer's own wheelie bin, failing that mine. From now on it's in theirs :-)

[dennis]

A lot of trades people just leave it with the homeowner to chuck in the bin these days. Otherwise they save it up until they have a full load.

[Huge]

Not getting at you personally, but I always specify that tradespeople remove their own waste.

[Harry Stottle]

But if that waste was previously part of a building etc. then it is not the tradesperson's property, it belongs to the householder, so it is not the tradesperson's waste, it is the householders. Removing anything without permission from someone's property could be classed as theft, especially if it had a value, like an old copper hot water tank. Obviously, if someone asks the tradespersons to remove any waste after completing their work, they are then giving them permission to remove the customer's waste, which is a different matter..

[Huge]

Is there much call for hair splitting round your way?

[Harry Stottle]

Not much, it has all been pulled out ;-)

[The Medway Handyman]

I'd very much like to offer it as a service to clients, but apart from not wanting to get a permit, they won't let my van into the normal tip because (a) its a van & (b) it won't fit under the height barrier. And according to the councils website we don't have a commercial or trade tip.

[Phil L]

With stuff like this, it would be almost imposible for anyone to get a successful prosecution against you - the metals and cardboard and wood are going to be recycled, while the tile and plasterboard fragments are to be used as hard core underneath your patio at home.

I have never heard of anyone obtaining one of these permits, nor of anyone being prosecuted for carrying normal trade waste.

[YAPH]

When I used to do bathrooms I often used to get a Hippobag for waste. Maybe that's something you could offer your clients where there's a lot of stuff to get rid of? You could supply the bag (c. £7 last time I looked) and they could pay to have it taken away, having added anything of theirs to it that they wanted.

[Dave Liquorice]

Vans are banned from our "Household Waste Recycling Centre" unless the owner has a permit then they can use it. Similarly twin axle (or more) trailers or trailers over 3m overall length are banned without a permit.

IIRC you don't have a particulary tall van, a Berlingo? Seems that I wouldn't get into your tip in my car (6'6" clearance required).

Seems a bit odd. What does the site say about waste transfer licences? Where can a licence holder transfer the waste to?

[Clive George]

50 quid to get it taken away...

[The Medway Handyman]

Kangoo. I permanently have a ladder on the roof bars & the clamps protrude over 6'6". Don't ask how I know :-)

Dunno, the site is predominantly gibberish, but search as I might I can't find an address.

[meow2222]

Papercrete can have a huge variety of garbage in it, so most waste could in fact be raw materials for an experiment with papercrete.

NT

[John Rumm]

Given the price of having the bags removed (i.e. not far off the price of a mini skip), it might be worth opening a trade account with a local skip firm. If you can get preferential prices and treatment from them, then you could simply resell skips of whatever size (and perhaps make a small profit on into the bargain).

[Steve Walker]

Our local 'tip' has a 5'8" height restriction.

SteveW