Wednesday, November 13, 2024

Businesses urged to have their say on plans to change waste charges

The Environment Agency is encouraging the waste, water, and farming sectors to have their say on charges associated with waste activities.

The 10-week consultation, which runs until January, proposes introduction of new regulatory charges for specific waste activities, as well as updating existing charging regimes from April 2025.

The Environment Agency is consulting on four key proposals:

  • A waste levy which will enable the Environment Agency to increase waste enforcement activity by around 30%.
  • New and updated hourly rates to ensure continued recovery of costs of regulatory activities.
  • A waste fee for intervention to recover the cost of regulation where operators lack authorisation.
  • Registration and compliance charges for waste exemptions. For farmers, we are proposing a reduced compliance charge for a set of 15 common on-farm waste exemptions.

England’s waste management industry generates nearly £7 billion annually, but organised criminals are becoming increasingly drawn to illegal waste activities which cause over £1 billion in damages each year, undercutting legitimate businesses.

The needs of the legitimate sector have also grown in recent years, making it necessary to review the service charges to ensure the Environment Agency can continue to deliver a robust and efficient regulatory service.

Proposals in this consultation will fund more regulatory work to target waste crime and the revenue generated through charges will support stronger enforcement, better customer support, improved digital systems and clearer guidance, says the Agency.

Illegally-dumped waste can impose significant costs on legitimate private landowners and rural businesses. The Environment Agency is committed to working closely with these groups to tackle the impacts of waste crime.

Steve Molyneux, Deputy Director of Waste and Resources Regulation at the Environment Agency, said: “It’s our job to be fair and transparent with the businesses we regulate for the work we do. Waste exemption abuse across industry sectors, increasing costs of regulation and illegal waste activity, is making it harder to meet the cost of these challenges.

“Our proposals will see more investment in our services, which is crucial in protecting legitimate businesses, tackling waste crime and reducing environmental damage. We encourage interested parties to respond to help shape the future of their industry.”

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this story on our news site - please take a moment to read this important message:

As you know, our aim is to bring you, the reader, an editorially led news site and magazine but journalism costs money and we rely on advertising, print and digital revenues to help to support them.

With the Covid-19 pandemichaving a major impact on our industry as a whole, the advertising revenues we normally receive, which helps us cover the cost of our journalists and this website, have been drastically affected.

As such we need your help. If you can support our news sites/magazines with either a small donation of even £1, or a subscription to our magazine, which costs just £31.50 per year, (inc p&P and mailed direct to your door) your generosity will help us weather the storm and continue in our quest to deliver quality journalism.

As a subscriber, you will have unlimited access to our web site and magazine. You'll also be offered VIP invitations to our events, preferential rates to all our awards and get access to exclusive newsletters and content.

Just click here to subscribe and in the meantime may I wish you the very best.








Latest news

Related news