Waste duty of care responsibilities and offences
Your business must follow its duty of care responsibilities for waste or you could face prosecution.
Duty of care is a system where businesses should work together to reduce environmental damage. Your business has specific legal responsibilities that it must follow - if not, you may be committing an offence.
Duty of care for business waste responsibilities
Under waste duty of care legislation you must:
- present waste correctly for collection in line with your waste collectors' instructions and waste legislation
- get evidence from your waste carrier that they are currently registered with the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA)
- have waste transfer notes for all non-hazardous waste removed from your premises and keep these for two years
- have consignment notes for all hazardous waste removed from your premises and keep these for three years
- transfer waste only to a facility that is authorised to accept it - you should get a copy of the site's authorisation
Duty of care for business waste offences
Duty of care aims to prevent danger to human health or harm to the environment. It is designed to be a self-regulating system based on good business practice.
You will be committing an offence if you:
- give waste to an unregistered waste carrier
- do not have valid waste transfer notes and/or consignment notes for the movement of waste
- transport waste without being registered with NIEA
- transport waste and do not have a complete waste transfer note with you
- accept waste without holding the relevant waste authorisation
- keep, treat or dispose of waste without the relevant waste authorisation
If you don't manage your waste in a legal way .
More detailed guidance on your waste responsibilities is available with the .
If you are in any doubt about the legality of a waste activity .
NetRegs provides .