11.12.12
Waste management roadmap published
A new roadmap has been published to uphold the role of standards in effective waste management.
The British Standards Institution (BSI) has developed the roadmap, using input from BIS, Defra, and the Environment Agency. The report has identified best practice for waste in metals, biowaste and recycling.
It concludes that standards help organisations to achieve and maintain waste permit compliance, decreasing the administrative and financial burden on both the regulator and regulated.
Additionally, these standards should be better integrated and recognised within the current waste permitting regime, the BSI recommended.
Defra minister Lord de Mauley said: “We have cut red tape in the waste sector, allowing it to concentrate on what it does best, protecting the environment and contributing to the UK economy every year.
“It is important that Government, the regulator and industry work together to help bring about better environmental protection while reducing the burden of regulation on those that comply and freeing up innovative businesses to create jobs and help the economy grow.”
Harvey Bradshaw, head of regulated industry at the Environment Agency, said: “The Environment Agency has taken part in the Standardisation Roadmap to Support Waste Regulations Project and supports its aim to help industry demonstrate compliance with environmental permits through use of standards.
“We encourage regulated industry to take responsibility for managing compliance and make greater use of standards to achieve high levels of compliance and improve environmental performance. We are committed to working with our customers and partners to drive more effective use of standards”.
Shirley Bailey-Wood, director of publishing at BSI said: “Although this project has looked at the further use of standards in one regulated industry, there is clearly the potential to apply a similar approach and learning to other sectors and legislative regimes.
“We hope that the findings will incentivise Government to move to Phase II of the project where the recommendations made in the report are actioned and appropriate policy delivery mechanisms are implemented using the expertise of BSI and the value of standards.”
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