The Environment Act 2021 – Are You Ready?
- Local Authorities, News
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After much debate, amendment and delay the Environment Act was passed in parliament, albeit quietly, on Tuesday 9th November.
While many of us are aware of the headline topics the Environment Act 2021 encompasses, there are a few key waste related points we should all be aware of.
We’ve taken a moment to highlight some of them for consideration when planning your next moves.
1. Duty of Care
Key to any business trading relationship is the importance of ensuring you’re aware of and follow the rules for managing waste. Compliance is key as the Environment Agency, Natural Resources Wales and SEPA will, for the first time, be able to fund their enforcement capability via a ‘charging scheme’.
2. Digitalisation
The Act aims to clamp down on illegal waste movements by introducing compulsory electronic records to track waste.
3. Procurement
It’s key to ensure the businesses you work with are on board with the above changes. Start conversations now with reliable, trusted, and compliant waste companies within your supply chain. Check references, hold, and maintain records and ensure end-to-end compliance with complete transparency across the process.
4. Communication
The Environment Act has introduced some uncertainty into the waste world, while we wait for the results of the various consultations to be implemented into regulations. As with any relationship, communication is key, and ensuring you’re having open and honest conversations with the people and businesses within your supply chain will help ensure we are all prepared to meet the changes as they unfold.
5. Waste collections
We know that under the Act, specific materials, including food waste must be collected separately from each other for recycling or composting from households and businesses alike.
6. Understand your business needs
Start to think about how you will meet your obligations, look at your current supply chain relationships, talk to us to understand what it is your business needs to do to not only comply but be, economically and environmentally sustainable, and secure good working relationships.
You’ll need to develop a robust plan and talk to the right people, to ensure your business gets the best solution!
7. Food waste
Commercial Food Waste RecyclingFor many local authorities, businesses, schools, hospitals, universities, and colleges presenting food waste separately for recycling will be new.
Right from the very beginnings of our business, we’ve made sure that we focus on creating a team of highly knowledgeable staff, with a wealth of experience across various industry sectors, so that our customers receive the best possible service for their individual needs.
Our expertise provides biological, regulatory, commercial, and engineering support to the renewables sector. With our experience, we are well-placed to provide a truly useful link between the Anaerobic Digestion sector and the food industry enabling compliant, environmentally, and commercially focused processes.
If you’d like to talk to a member of our team about any of the above and start a conversation about your waste management strategy, get in touch today.
