On April 6th 2016, The Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) (Amendment) (No.2) Regulations 2016 came into force.
It amended the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulation 2010. The changes brings flood risk activities to the Environmental Permitting Framework which replaces the flood defence consent scheme. This means that flood risk activities, such as installing and using boreholes within a main river floodplain for a temporary period, have a set of rules set by the EA to which they must comply with.
Although slightly detracting from new legislation, we still thought it was worth mentioning a recent awareness campaign, RightWasteRightPlace, sponsored by the EA, ESA, CIWM and ESAET. The campaign has been set up to help small businesses and establishments meet their Duty of Care requirements and a number of surprising stats came to light regarding waste compliance. Some of the interesting figures we want to highlight are: 56% of UK companies are not fully compliant with Duty of Care and related regulations; 11% felt disposing of specific material was a barrier; and 94% of non complaint businesses are SME’s. Waste legislation can often be challenging to get to grips with, particularly for organisations with limited resources.
We think a well thought out campaign such as this is a great tool to understanding the basics and should not be overlooked by both small and large organisations.