Industry Urged to Address Misclassification of Hazardous Waste

Commenting on a recent letter from the Environment Agency highlighting the fact that some companies have been found to be misclassifying and mismanaging hazardous waste as a result of using out of date information, CIWM chief executive Steve Lee said:

“This is a complex area of waste regulation and also extremely important in terms of the potential environmental and health impacts of misclassification and mismanagement. The Environment Agency is quite rightly working collaboratively with industry organisations to get the message out and as the professional body for the waste and resources sector, CIWM is committed to supporting its efforts to tackle these misclassification issues.

“I would urge practitioners for whom this is relevant to refer to the Agency’s letter and supporting Annexe, and also to disseminate this information to colleagues and contacts as appropriate.

“CIWM’s remit is to drive and encourage high standards of competence and compliance and the Institution is also currently reviewing its training provision to ensure that we can continue to help CIWM members and others to keep their knowledge up-to-date and accurate with regard to hazardous waste assessment, classification and management.”