Waste management: code of practice on sampling and reporting at materials facilities - June 2024

2. General requirements

This section applies to any authorised MF operator receiving 1,000 tonnes or more of dry recyclable waste in any reporting year and:

• Sorting dry recyclable waste into output material, and/or
• Consolidating or ‘bulking’ dry recyclable waste from two or more suppliers.

2.1. Notification to SEPA

6. Authorised MF operators receiving, or likely to receive, 1,000 tonnes or more of dry recyclable waste in any reporting year, and who have requirements under the code in line with Table 1, are required to notify SEPA immediately, in writing, that they are in scope. If circumstances change such that the facility is no longer in scope, the authorised MF operator must notify SEPA immediately in writing.

7. Where an MF has not previously received 1,000 tonnes or more of dry recyclable waste in any reporting year and, during the course of a reporting year, proceeds to receive 1,000 tonnes or more of dry recyclable waste for the first time, the authorised MF operator must notify SEPA immediately in writing that they are in scope. At the time of notification, the authorised MF operator must seek agreement from SEPA on a timescale for commencement of sampling and reporting. However, sampling must commence no later than the second reporting period after the date on which the cumulative total of dry recyclable waste received in that reporting year reaches 1,000 tonnes.

2.2. Enforcement

8. For MFs in scope as per Table 1, compliance with the requirements of this Code is a condition of the authorised MF operator’s waste-management licence and/or pollution prevention and control permit or, as the case may be, exemption from the requirement to have a waste-management licence. Failure to comply may result in enforcement action including revocation of the waste-management licence or pollution prevention and control permit or removal of the entry relating to an exempt activity from the register.

9. All those subject to the requirements of the Code should be aware that section 34(10) of the 1990 Act makes provision for any Code of Practice issued under section 34(7) to be admissible as evidence in any legal proceedings, for example in determining whether an authorised MF operator has failed to comply with the duty of care in section 34(2L) of the 1990 Act or their authorisation conditions by failing to comply with the terms of the Code.

2.3. Recording and reporting requirements

10. Authorised MF operators with sampling requirements under this Code must report the results of material sampling to SEPA every three months. Data reported must be as accurate as possible.

11. Under the Code the first reporting period will start on 1 April 2025, and sampling should commence from this date. A reporting year will be made up of four reporting periods. Reports must be submitted in electronic format in a form specified by SEPA and within one month of the end of the reporting period as set out below:

a) 1 April to 30 June with reports to SEPA due by 31 July.

b) 1 July to 30 September with reports to SEPA due by 31 October.

c) 1 October to 31 December with reports to SEPA due by 31 January.

d) 1 January to 31 March with reports to SEPA due by 30 April.

12. All information obtained and recorded under this Code must be kept for a minimum of seven years from the date it was recorded and must be made available to SEPA upon request.

2.4. Sampling

13. This subsection sets out some general rules applying to both input sampling under section 3 and output sampling under section 4 of this Code.

14. If the sample contains material fragments, they will be deemed to contain the same proportions of material as those making up the non-fragment section of the sample. It is therefore not expected that operators separate fragments into their relevant category, but simply record and report the total fragments, which will be apportioned automatically.

15. The authorised MF operator must ensure that the sampling methodology used results in samples that are representative of the materials comprising the waste material from which they are taken. This is to ensure that samples accurately reflect the composition of the overall waste material. The sampling methodology must be recorded and made available to SEPA upon request.