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The duty of care applies to all businesses and organisations that generate waste materials.
These materials are classified as "controlled waste" and their handling and treatment are regulated by law.
Legal Duty
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You have a duty to ensure that any waste you produce is handled safely and in accordance with the current legislation. It applies to anyone who produces, imports, carries, stores, treats or disposes of controlled wastes from business or industry or who acts as a waste broker.
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As a business or other organisation, you must take all reasonable and relevant measures necessary to:
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prevent anyone illegally keeping, treating, depositing, disposing of or recovering your waste. |
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ensure that anyone handling your waste has the appropriate, waste management licences and that these are valid or that they are exempt from requiring such a licence. |
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ensure that the waste is only transferred to an “authorised person” and that the transfer is accompanied by a written description of the waste - a waste transfer note (WTN). |
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and prevent materials escaping from your control, or the control of anyone handling the waste on your behalf, by packaging it in the most appropriate manner.
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A principle aim of the duty of care is to prevent waste producers from just passing their waste to anyone prepared to take it without giving due consideration to how the materials will be handled, treated or disposed of.
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Your responsibility for your waste continues even after you have passed it onto a third party, until it has been finally and properly disposed of or fully recovered or recycled.
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You are required by law to retain a copy of the waste transfer note for a period of two years for most types of controlled wastes or three years for Hazardous Waste.
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