Every business has a legal ‘duty of care’ to ensure that any waste it produces or handles is stored, transported, treated, reprocessed and disposed of safely. If you give your waste to anyone else you must be sure they are authorised to take it. It is not acceptable to place your rubbish or recycling out for the collection provided by the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, as this is for the use of residents only.
The simplest solution to your Duty of Care may be to set up a Waste Transfer Agreement with a properly registered waste contractor. They will need to know what you are disposing of, and may advise you how you should store it and separate it and how they will collect it. The Waste Transfer Agreement will provide you with Waste Transfer Notes appropriate for council inspection. If however the council find that your agreement is not adequate to cover your needs they will ask you to amend it.
As a business, these are your responsibilities:
- You must obtain Waste Transfer Notes for all your business waste and keep them for a minimum of two years. An annual Trade Waste Agreement with a disposal company may comply with this requirement.
- You must present your Waste Transfer Notes to the council for inspection on request. Failure to do so can result in a fixed penalty or prosecution.
- You must have in place appropriate arrangements for the storage of your waste at your premises.
- You must deal appropriately with the type of waste your business produces and know what you are going to need to dispose of (e.g. plastic, cardboard, glass, leftover food etc.) and the proper means for disposing of it – including recycling where practicable.
- No matter how little or how much waste your business produces you must not:
- take it home and put it in your domestic household waste and recycling bins.
- put it into public waste bins (litter bins).
- put it into public recycling containers on supermarket and pub car parks.
- you must not take it to Household Waste Recycling Centres.
- You must not give your waste to someone who is not properly licensed to take it. They must be properly registered or licensed by the Environment Agency to either receive your waste from you or transport your waste and dispose of it on your behalf.
- Not dealing correctly with your business waste can result in a fixed penalty of £300 for offences under section 34 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and a fixed penalty of £100 for offences under section 47.
- Failure to ensure that a person disposing of your waste is properly registered can result in a fine of up to £5000 if you are convicted of the offence.
- If your waste is fly-tipped by yourself or someone else it can result in an unlimited fine and/or imprisonment if you are convicted of the offence.
There are a number of companies in the local area who can offer rubbish and recycling collections to businesses, with many offering collections from sacks or bins, and at varying frequencies, as appropriate for the space you have available to store your rubbish.
Please also make sure that if rubbish or recycling are spilt from your bins during or before the collection that this is cleared up.