With 16 July 2006 fast approaching, the Hazardous Waste Regulations in England and Wales are a year old. Premises Notification applications made in anticipation of the commencement date and commencing on 16 July 2005, are now becoming due for renewal.

Given the problems that were experienced by the Environment Agency with the process of notification, resulting in the need for emergency codes (EXEXXX is still in use in some cases, sanctioned by the Agency), it was with some relief that SMDSA representatives invited to another Agency liaison meeting in April heard of improvements being made to the notification system. The Agency have now issued a new spreadsheet version for Bulk Notifications which includes a new validation step, similar to that which had been successful for the Consignee Quarterly Returns system. However as this has only just been released, whether it is as successful as hoped remains to be seen.

With a years’ experience, other issues are now beginning to emerge. Although the Agency have referred recently to a quarterly income from consignment notes of around £2M, figures for consignment notes given at the liaison seminar can be easily calculated to reflect a figure of £5M per Quarter – a discrepancy about which the Agency have yet to respond.

Against this background, SMDSA have now learnt that certain Industry sectors are being informed that they, and hence their customers are being given the opportunity to pay only for the first consignment note in a series of movements, whilst the Regulations require a charge for every consignment note. How the Agency can justify choosing to not implement the Regulations in certain sectors is a matter still to be answered. How contractors in the Clinical Waste sector will be able to respond to queries from customers who are charged for each and every consignment, whilst other sectors are being allowed by the Agency not to levy these charges is a matter that raises some interesting questions.

Also outlined in the liaison meeting was the number of Annual Notifications, which at 225,000 in April 2005 considerably exceeded those expected. However what has been shown is that the option of electronic notification has been hugely successful. The Healthcare sector had the highest number of premises notifications – surprising, given some of the other hazardous wastes concerned like waste oils. A worrying statistic at this stage, considering the question of whether clinical waste is always hazardous waste as reflected in an update of the Agency’s WM2 guidance (without any Industry consultation) and the draft ‘Safe Management of Healthcare Waste’ which has essentially been referred back to the steering group for further consideration.

Progress with Consignee Quarterly Returns was referred to, and despite what is in fact a very user friendly Agency electronic Returns System, and the passing of two full Quarters during which returns should have been made, it was of considerable concern that the Agency admitted that a number of contractors have yet to submit returns for the first quarter.