The Environment Agency has warned that it will take a hard line on waste offences when new regulations are brought in later this year.

The Landfill Directive, which demands the correct disposal of hazardous waste through licensed contractors, will be implemented in July, along with the banning of disposing hazardous wastes with other types of waste in the same landfill cell. Pre-disposal treatment guidelines for hazardous waste will also be introduced in the same directive.

Barbara Young, Chief Executive of the Environment Agency said in a statement; “Many businesses are unaware that they have a legal duty of care to ensure that they pass their waste on to a legitimate waste carrier, and could end up in the dock themselves if their waste is subsequently flytipped by unscrupulous criminals. Generally, if the offer to take waste off your hands is too good to be true, it is unlikely to be a legal route for the proper disposal of hazardous waste, and may well end up in illegal dumping.”

The South West produces 300,000 tonnes of hazardous waste a year. 100,000 tonnes of this is oil-related and 100,000 tonnes comes from contaminated land and asbestos. The remainder is a mixture of material including chemicals and solvents. The South West presently puts one third of its hazardous waste into landfill sites – 75% of it going to landfill sites within the region.

Baroness Young continued: "It has been clear for a long time that the UK’s reliance on cheap landfilling of waste has to end. The Landfill Directive has been in the pipeline for a decade with its objective of ending co-disposal of hazardous and non-hazardous waste. Alternative methods of treating and disposing of hazardous wastes already exist and are in use in many European states.

Source: www.environment-agency.gov.uk