The Environmental Protection (Duty of Care) Regulations 1991

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

Section 34(1) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 imposes a duty of care on any person who imports, produces, carries, keeps, treats or disposes of controlled waste or, as a broker, has control of such waste. The duty requires such persons to ensure that there is no unauthorised or harmful deposit, treatment or disposal of the waste, to prevent the escape of the waste from their control or that of any other person, and on the transfer of the waste to ensure that the transfer is only to an authorised person or to a person for authorised transport purposes and that a written description of the waste is also transferred.

These Regulations impose requirements under section 34(5) of the 1990 Act on any person who is subject to the duty of care as respects the making and retention of documents and the furnishing of copies of them.

Breach of the duty of care or of these Regulations is a criminal offence. The duty of care and these Regulations do not apply to an occupier of domestic property as respects the household waste produced on the property.

Regulation 2 requires the transferor and the transferee to complete and sign a transfer note at the same time as the written description of the waste is transferred. The transfer note must identify the waste in question and state its quantity, how it is stored, the time and place of transfer, the name and address of the transferor and the transferee, whether the transferor is the producer or importer of the waste, which (if any) authorised transport purpose applies, in which category of person the transferor and the transferee are and certain additional information.

Regulation 3 requires the transferor and the transferee to keep the written description of the waste and the transfer note or copies of them for two years from the transfer.

Regulation 4 imposes a duty on a person who is under a duty to keep any document by virtue of regulation 3 to furnish a copy of that document to a waste regulation authority if he is required to do so by the authority.