Publication - Advice and guidance
Duty of care: code of practice for managing controlled waste
Statutory guidance on the duties that must be complied with by anyone who produces, keeps, imports or manages controlled waste in Scotland.
2 Glossary
| Term | Description |
|---|---|
| Basic Characterisation | The Landfill Directive (1999/31/ EC) and Council Decision (2003/33/ EC) establish criteria and procedures for the acceptance of waste at landfills including a requirement for their basic characterisation. |
| Broker | An establishment or undertaking arranging the recovery or disposal of waste on behalf of others including those brokers who do not take physical possession of the waste. |
| Carrier | Any person (or establishment or undertaking) transporting waste within Scotland. |
| Closed-loop Recycling | Where a product is used, discarded, captured, and then the component materials recycled into a new product of similar functionality which is then itself used, discarded and captured, to be recycled again, continuously cycling the material resource though the supply chain. |
| Construction Work | The carrying out of any building, civil engineering or engineering construction work and includes: construction, alteration, conversion, fitting out, commissioning, renovation or other maintenance, decommissioning, demolition or dismantling of a structure. |
| Construction and Demolition Waste | Waste arising from works of construction or demolition, including preparatory works thereto. |
| Co-mingled waste | Co-mingled collections are where some, or all, of the key dry recyclables are collected together in the same container and later sorted at a Materials Recycling Facility. |
| Controlled Waste | The term controlled waste comes from Section 75(4) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and is defined as "household, industrial and commercial waste or any such waste". Further detail on the meaning of household, industrial and commercial waste is provided in the Controlled Waste Regulations 1992. |
| Dealer | Establishment or undertaking which acts in the role of principal to purchase and subsequently sell waste including dealers who do not take physical possession of that waste. |
| Enforcement Officer | An officer of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency or Local Authority who has powers in connection with the investigation of actual or suspected offences, the detection and apprehension of offenders and to act in respect of such environmental offences. |
| Environmental Permit | A permit or licence issued under the Pollution Prevention and Control (Scotland) Regulations 2000 (as amended) or the Waste Management Licensing Regulations 2011. |
| Environmental Protection Act 1990 | Section 34 of this Act sets out the requirements of the Duty of Care with respect to waste. |
| Exemption from an WML | An activity that can be undertaken legally without a waste management licence. Regulation 17 and Schedule 1 to the Waste Management Licensing (Scotland) Regulations 2011 lists and describes the waste operations which do not require an Waste Management Licence, providing that the establishment or undertaking carrying them out complies with the terms of the Regulations and has registered that exemption where required. |
| Establishment or Undertaking | Includes any organisation, whether a company, partnership, authority, society, trust, club, charity, sole trader or other organisation, but not individuals acting in a private capacity. |
| Food Business | An undertaking, whether for profit or not, and whether public or private, carrying out any activity related to the processing, distribution, preparation or sale of food. |
| Food Waste | Controlled waste that was at any time food intended for human consumption (even if of no nutritional value), and includes biodegradable waste produced as consequence of the processing or preparation of food, but does not include drink. |
| Green List Waste | Waste which is not, for the purposes of import or export for recovery, regarded as hazardous. Green list controls apply to some (but not all) imports or exports. |
| Harm | Harm to the health of living organisms or other interference with the ecological systems of which they form part and in the case of man includes offence to any of his senses or harm to his property; and "harmless" has a corresponding meaning. |
| Household waste | Waste generated by households (and not as defined by the Controlled Waste Regulations 1992 which are concerned with charging for collection). Waste from households includes household collection rounds, other household collections such as bulky waste collections; waste deposited by householders at Household Waste Recycling Centres ( HWRCs) and recycling points / bring banks. |
| Householder | The occupier of any domestic property. |
| Holder of Waste | The producer of the waste or the natural or legal person that is in possession of it or who has control of it. |
| Pollution of the Environment | Pollution due to the release or escape (into any environmental medium) from: (a) the land on which controlled waste is treated, (b) the land on which controlled waste is kept, (c) the land in or on which controlled waste is deposited, (d) fixed plant by means of which controlled waste is treated, kept or disposed of, of substances or articles constituting or resulting from the waste and capable (by reason of the quantity or concentrations involved) of causing harm to man or any other living organisms supported by the environment. |
| Public Registers | A register maintained by SEPA of all registered waste management activities including all waste carriers or professional collectors or transporters of waste, waste brokers and dealers, those with a waste management licence or pollution prevention and control permit or those establishments or undertakings registered as operating under an exemption from waste management licensing. |
| Rural area | Rural is defined using the six-fold classification system used by Scottish Government. A guide to defining rural and non rural areas to support zero waste policies is available containing all the rural postcodes which benefit from the exemption. |
| Season Ticket | A controlled waste transfer note must be created for each load of waste that leaves your site. However, for repetitive transfers there is provision to use one transfer note which will cover multiple transfers. One transfer note can be used for multiple collections for a time period that is not to be longer than 12 months; it should then be renewed if required. This is called a "season ticket". A season ticket can only be used if none of the following details change: the waste carrier remains the same the producer and collection premises remains the same the description of waste remains the same If any of this information changes, then an individual transfer note must be used. It is advisable that a log be maintained of loads of waste leaving and arriving at sites under a season ticket. |
| Separate Collection | "Waste is presented for collection, and collected, in a manner that ensures that- (i) dry recyclable waste is kept separate from other waste; (ii) waste from one dry waste stream is kept separate from waste in another such stream [1] ." |
| SIC Codes | SIC is the UK Standard Industrial Classification of Economic Activities (2007). The SIC code is used to classify business establishments and other statistical units by the type of economic activities they are engaged in. You are required to record the appropriate SIC code of the transferor on all controlled waste transfer notes. Relevant codes can be determined from the Office of National Statistics. |
| Transfer Note | A note which must be created for any transfer of controlled waste. The note must be signed by both parties and must contain certain prescribed information about the waste to be transferred. It must contain a written description of the waste and any further information required for the next and subsequent holders of the waste to manage it without causing pollution of the environment or harm. A specimen note is provided in Chapter 10 of this guidance. |
| Transferee | The person (or establishment or undertaking) receiving the waste. |
| Transferor | The person (or establishment or undertaking) holding the waste and who transfers it to another (different) person (or establishment or undertaking). |
| Waste | 'Waste' means any substance or object which the holder discards or intends or is required to discard. |
| Waste Collection Authority | A local authority responsible for collecting waste as defined in Section 30 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. |
| Written Description | Information submitted on the transfer note identifying the nature and characteristics of the waste. This must enable subsequent holders to avoid breaching their duty of care or permitting obligations and should help them manage the waste correctly and to meet their requirements under the Landfill Directive. |
| WEEE | Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment that is regulated under the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Regulations 2006 (as amended). |
| Waste Manager | Waste manager means anyone who is responsible for the collection, transport, recovery and disposal of waste, including the supervision of such operations and the after-care of disposal sites, and includes any actions taken as a broker or dealer. |
| Waste Producer | Any person whose activities produce waste (original waste producer) or anyone who carries out pre-processing, mixing or other operations which result in a change in the nature or composition of this waste. |
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