Safe Disposal of Waste: What Businesses Need to Know

Posted on May 23, 2013 in Our Service

What are your legal responsibilities regarding the safe disposal of waste from your business? How do you avoid the charge of being a fly tipper? What is fly tipping? Since small and medium-sized businesses have responsibilities for the safe disposal of waste, this article highlights a few key points.

A recent survey found that only 18% of small and medium-sized businesses could name any environmental legislation that applied to their business, and that most didn’t believe that their businesses actions caused any harm to the environment.
This highlights that more businesses would benefit from being familiar with the ‘Duty of Care’ regulations and its main requirements.

Unwitting Victims

The Environmental Protection Act 1990 indicates that each person disposing of waste has a duty to dispose of it safely and appropriately, and that to breach these requirements is a crime which could lead to fines, imprisonment and clean-up costs.
The problem is that ignorance could lead to a small business depositing waste in an area where they could find themselves on the wrong side of this legislation, or a business could unwittingly contract a company that is not authorised and therefore illegal, to dispose of the waste for them.
As you can imagine, in the absence of evidence from the disposal firm the small business could be held responsible, making you unwitting victims of their crime.

Get More Information

If you have an amount of waste which you need to dispose of safely, it is advisable to contact your local council to enquire of the appropriate methods and if they have local recycling centres that could accept your waste.
In addition, the WasteAware website has a database of recycling centres and what materials they accept, and a list of authorised commercial waste disposal companies.

Professional Criminals

How can you avoid becoming an unwitting victim of those who seek to gain by illegally dumping waste? Keep Britain Tidy warns that that a lot of fly-tipping is organised by professional criminals who can gain significant financial rewards.
To avoid trouble that can come from this make sure you check the paperwork of any waste disposal contractor.

Junk Empire: Here to Help.

Junk Empire, a sister company of ProTech Property Solutions, is qualified to dispose of your waste. We have the experience and reputation that means we will dispose of your waste safely and appropriately.

http://www.junkempire.co.uk/