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Hazardous Waste Producers in England no longer need to register

Two aspects of the Hazardous Waste Regulations are changing on 1st April 2016.

Firstly, premises in England no longer need to register with the Environment Agency as hazardous waste producers. 

Secondly, the format of the unique consignment note code, which appears on every consignment note, will change. These changes only apply to England.

The proposed changes are due to the Strategic Smarter Environment Regulation Review.

From 1 April 2016, this change affects the entire hazardous waste control system.

Organisations that produce or store 500kg or more hazardous waste per year will no longer need to register the premises with the Environment Agency from 1stApril 2016. The organisation must continue to have a valid registration up until 1st April 2016.

To accommodate the removal of premises registration, the format of the consignment note code will change on 1 April 2016 regardless of the amount of hazardous waste produced, stored or handled. The first 6 letters of the consignment note code, currently the premises registration number, will be replaced with the first six letters or number (not symbols) of the company name. Companies whose name is less than six letters will have a filler letter to insert in the remaining spaces.

In addition, ‘exempt’ will no longer be used on consignment notes. The second set of characters will continue to be five numbers or letters of the company’s choosing.

The requirement for the SIC code on the consignment note will also change. SIC 2003 is currently acceptable on consignment notes (as well as SIC 2007 and NACE (European industry classification system)). From 1st April 2016 only SIC 2007 and NACE will be acceptable, as is already the case with Waste Transfer Notes.

Concerns have been raised over confusion that might occur where several companies have the same first six letters, for example National. The Environment Agency view is that this will not be a problem as they will be able to identify the company by the postcode.

The new requirements are due to start on 1st April 2016 but it seems the new regulations won’t be available until then.

The following guidance documents have been updated to take note of the changes:

 

The Environment Agency has asked that any queries should be directed to the National Customer Contact Centre (NCCC) ([email protected]) or by telephone on 03708 506 506.

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