Find out more about our review of waste permits and exemptions.
We're working with Defra and the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) to review which businesses handling waste can operate under exemptions, and which require a permit.
Our proposals may affect any business that recycles, stores, treats or disposes of any kind of waste.
Why we're revising the current exemptions system
Our current exemptions system has been in place for nearly 15 years. Although some changes have been made over that time a complete overhaul was needed. This was so the exemptions can meet the needs of industry, which have changed due to advances in waste handling practices and also so they reflect our current knowledge of environmental protection.
The aim of the review is to provide a more risk-based and proportionate approach to the regulation of waste recovery and disposal operations, complementing the new environmental permitting regime.
We want to target our resources on the activities which have the most potential to harm the environment, and make the system for lower-risk activities simpler for businesses to understand and for us to administer.
What's happening?
We ran a joint consultation with Defra and the WAG last year on the proposed changes to the exemption system. The proposals were for increasing the use of exemptions for low risk activities (including most of those operating under a low risk waste position) whilst removing or restricting the availability of the exemptions for higher risk waste operations by seeking to regulate them through standard permits.
The Government has published its response to the consultation confirming that:
- Higher risk exempt activities will be moving into standard permits;
- There will be no charge for registering exemptions (apart from the exemption for the refurbishment of Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment - WEEE). The original consultation proposed a registration charge of £50 per site. The Government decided not to charge in order to reduce the impact on businesses in the current economic climate;
- Exemptions will need to be renewed every three years. This will help us keep our public register of exempt activities up-to-date;
- There will be future reviews of the exemptions system.
This full response is available on Defra's website at the following link:
The regulations have been approved by Parliament and contain detailed information on the threshold limits of the new exemptions. You can read them here:
The limits on some exemptions are different than those we originally proposed. This is due to the comments we received during the consultation process and subsequent stakeholder workshops. We recommend you read about the exemptions you are interested in.
What happens next?
We ran a consultation earlier this year on draft standard rules for the permits which will replace currently exempt activities which cannot meet the threshold limits of the new exemptions. The consultation is now closed and our response is due later in January. Final rules, risk assessments, application forms and guidance will follow soon after.
The proposed charges for these new permits are set out in our annual Charging Consultation in Annex A. You can find out more information, along with details of how to respond to the consultation, at the following link:
The new regulations are due to come in to force on 6 April 2010. Anyone wanting to carry out a new activity on or after this date will need to register one of the new exemptions or apply for a permit.
Customers with exemptions registered as of 5 April 2010 will move into the new system in phases, ending in October 2013. Detailed information on how this will work is available in section 12 of the draft Government guidance which Defra is currently consulting on:
We are producing comprehensive guidance on all aspects of the new regulations and this will be available on our website soon. We are also developing a new IT system which will enable customers to register their exemptions online. This will be the quickest and easiest way of registering.
Contact
If you have any enquiries about the Waste Exemptions Review, please email us:
