Find out more about how we are improving our approach to regulating waste.
We want to focus our efforts and resources on the activities that pose the greatest risk to the environment and human health and to reduce the burden of red tape for our customers.
What is the Modernising Waste Regulation Panel?
The role of the panel is to make decisions on specific waste issues such as whether or not permits or exemptions apply. This will reduce the burden of environmental regulation and allow us to focus our efforts on higher risk activities whilst ensuring we act in a consistent manner.
The panel is made up of a number of people from across our organisation and holds regular telecons to discuss the submissions made to it. Individuals or companies should contact their local area office to discuss specific issues and enable their local officer to sponsor any submission to the panel. The panel does not deal directly with external organisations.
If the panel decides that the requirement for a waste permit is disproportionate to the activity, it will produce a regulatory position statement setting out how we intend to regulate a particular activity for a set period (for example until regulations are brought in or changed, or where a legislative review is completed).
Position statements are produced to ensure those carrying out an activity understand what is required of them, which type of permit they may need and how to get one. They are only produced where there is no current guidance covering the issue.
What decisions have been made so far?
Please click on any of the following to take you to further information:
Guidance on the meaning of 'place' is available on our position statement page.
New regulations introduced in April 2010 affected waste exemptions - the guidance below explains these changes:
Guidance on the regulation of wood, gypsum, processed fuel oil, marine sediments and pulverised fuel ash (PFA), is available on our position statement page.
- Civil engineering activities involving grouts or other media for the purpose of sealing or ground stabilisation (issued June 2011) (PDF, 81KB)
- Managing concrete wash waters on construction sites: good practice and temporary discharges to ground or to surface waters (issued June 2011) (PDF, 112KB)
- Use of waste clay to construct slurry lagoons or irrigation reservoirs (upated April 2012) (PDF, 74KB)
- Temporary storage of contaminated washwaters from gas pipelines (issued May 2011) (PDF, 75KB)
- Use of waste bentonite for engineering purposes as part of the creation of a dock (issued April 2011) (PDF, 68KB)
- Temporary secure storage of fly-tipped wastes and waste from trash screens (issued January 2011) (PDF, 70KB)
- Use of treated waste tar bound road planings in construction (version 2, issued Oct 2011) (PDF, 71KB)
- Demolition waste left in situ (version 2, November 2010) (PDF, 70KB)
- The dewatering of street sweepings (issued July 2010) (PDF, 70KB)
- Use of small quantities of road planings on agricultural tracks and roads (PDF, 70KB)
- Leaving decommissioned asbestos pipe in excavations version 6 (issued July 2011) (PDF, 70KB)
Guidance on contaminated land and on the regulation of manufactured aggregates and soils at exempt sites is available on our position statement page.
- The use of auxiliary (back up) flares at exempt anaerobic digestion plants (issued March 2012) (PDF, 75KB)
- The use of up flow anaerobic sludge blanket anaerobic digestion systems (issued March 2012) (PDF, 75KB)
- Regulation of combustion plant burning biogas from the anaerobic digestion of sewage sludge (issued July 2011) (PDF,82KB)
- The use of treated blackwater on the London 2012 Olympic Park (issued August 2011) (PDF, 90KB)
- Treating solid wastes from composting toilets at the depot from where they have been hired out (issued August 2011) (PDF, 93KB)
- Emergency cold weather guidance for spreading on agricultural land (issued December 2010) (PDF, 90KB)
- Seeding of anaerobic digestion plants (issued December 2010) (PDF, 64KB)
- Composting manure which includes bedding (March 2011) (PDF, 80KB)
- Storage and land spreading of processed animal protein as a fertilizer (PDF, 70KB)
- Collection and storage at marinas and lock sites of sewage effluent from boats pending disposal elsewhere (March 2011) (PDF, 70KB)
- Deposit and dewatering of non-hazardous silts from Sustainable Drainage Systems (SUDS) on land (March 2011) (PDF, 70KB)
- Disposal of septic tank and cesspool sludge from domestic dwellings and arisings from blocked sewers (version 4, July 2011) (PDF, 68KB)
- The burial of rodents poisoned on farmland (March 2011) (PDF,120KB)
Guidance on the restriction on the use of gypsum and plasterboard in animal bedding and on anaerobic digestion of agricultural manure and slurry is available on our position statement page.
Guidance on the environmental regulation of wood is available on our position statement
A position statement on regulating trials of waste management activities explains our approach. If the panel approve a trial application, we will produce a regulatory position statement for that trial. These are specific to the operator and location/s specified and cannot be used for similar trials elsewhere.
Guidance on the definition of extractive waste and the regulatory framework for implementation of the MWD is available on our position statement page.
These regulatory position statements are currently being reviewed.
Guidance on the permitting and use of air curtain incinerators is available on our position statement page.
Our position on specific waste matters can also be found on our position statement page.
