The Environmental Protection Act 1990 concludes a Duty of Care on all businesses who produce waste to ensure that their waste is dealt with by a fully compliant company.
What is The Duty of Care?
Your company has a Duty of Care to take all reasonable measures to:
- Prevent the unauthorised or harmful disposal of your waste by another person.
- Prevent the escape of the waste from your or any other person's control.
On the transfer of the waste to secure:
- That the transfer of waste is only to an authorised person or to a person for authorise transport purposes.
- That there is transferred such a written description of the waste as will enable other persons to avoid the unathorised or harmful disposal of the waste and to comply with their own Duty of Care.
You must ensure the proper and safe disposal of waste even after you have passed it on to another party such as a waste contractor, scrap merchant, recycler, local council or skip hire company. The Duty of Care has no time limit, and extends until the waste has either been disposed of or fully recovered.
West Dunbartonshire Council provides a commercial waste service to businesses within its boundaries. This fully compliant and chargeable service can offer multiple uplifts of various sizes of wheeled bins depending on your businesses requirements. To order a wheeled bin please download and complete The Bin Order Form. Full details can be obtained by calling Waste Services on: 01389 738542 (Clydebank area) 01389 738725 (Dumbarton/Vale of Leven areas).
As part of our waste prevention initiatives we offer a cardboard collection service for commercial premises. You may receive a discount in the charge for the uplift of your waste if you participate in this cardboard recycling scheme. For further details, please call the numbers listed above or read the Commericial Waste in West Dunbartonshire leaflet (186KB .pdf document).
A Resource Efficiency Directory has been produced in conjunction with Scottish Enterprise Dunbartonshire and offers support to help your business become more sustainable. Either download a copy of the Resource Efficiency Directory (1.31MB .pdf document) or call 0845 111 0050 to request a copy.
Recycling of Business Waste
As the cost of disposing waste to landfill continues to rise, there’s never been a better time for businesses to reduce, reuse and recycle their waste which in turn will help to lower their waste collection and disposal bills. This can also promote a positive message to customers about the benefits of the three R’s. Waste Aware Scotland runs the national campaigns Waste Aware Business and Waste Aware Construction both of which raise awareness of how Scottish companies can deal with their waste in a more sustainable way. The websites contain a directory which gives information on a range of service providers throughout Scotland who provide reuse and recycling services to businesses, plus other tools such as case studies and how to guides.
For more information visit http://www.wasteawarebusiness.org.uk? and http://www.wasteawareconstruction.org.uk?.
The Scottish Government are currently consulting on 3 actions relating to the introduction of regulatory measures within the Zero Waste Plan, which would increase recycling and reduce waste to landfill. This consultation will affect those who produce business waste and will:
• require source segregation and separate collection of specified waste materials;
• restrict input to landfill (effectively banning materials which could be re-used or recycled or which could be used to produce
energy); and
• restrict inputs to Energy from Waste facilities (effectively banning materials which could be re-used or recycled).
Visit the consultation at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2010/12/01105835/0?
