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Closed 20 Jan 2025

Opened 11 Nov 2024

National Customer Contact Services

03708506506

enquiries@environment-agency.gov.uk

The Environment Agency carries out a wide range of regulatory services. They are fundamental to how we protect the environment. These include flood and coastal erosion risk management, regulation of water quality and abstraction, waste, pollution prevention and navigation.

We know it works – England is a much cleaner, greener place because of our activities. We charge the businesses we regulate for the work we do to regulate them. We are committed to making sure our charges are fair and transparent. We want them to reflect the full cost of the chargeable services we provide.

To achieve this, we are proposing some new and updated charges for waste activities and hourly rates from April 2025.

Please note this consultation was retracted for a short period of time on 14 November whilst we fixed a technical issue affecting the page link for medium combustion plant charge proposals.

We would like you to share your views on our proposals to introduce new charges for waste exemptions, waste fee for intervention and the waste crime levy. These charge proposals are designed to fund regulatory work targeting waste crime. We want to:

• increase our enforcement presence to reduce poor performance in the waste sector
• stop illegal activities that are undercutting legitimate businesses

We are also seeking your views on our proposals to revise our medium combustion plant charges and our time and materials charges (hourly rates) relating to a range of other activities.

This consultation includes the consultation document and supporting documentation: 

• guide to how we calculate our charges
• draft EPR charging scheme from April 2025

These documents are available in the 'related' section at the bottom of this page.

The draft EPR charging scheme includes our proposed charges for waste exemptions, waste fee for intervention, waste levy and updated hourly rates (time and materials charge) for unplanned events and radioactive substances (nuclear and non-nuclear activity).

Any other charges that we update or introduce in April 2025 will be published on our GOV.UK fees and charges page.

Our proposals are set out in more detail in the main part of this consultation.

We would like you to share your views and welcome your feedback as it helps us to understand the impact of our charge proposals and make an informed decision.

We know our charges can affect those we regulate so we have considered our proposals carefully. We are interested to hear how you think we might regulate more fairly, while safeguarding the environment more effectively. 

This consultation runs for 10 weeks from 11 November 2024 until midnight on 20 January 2025. We will consider all responses received by the closing date before finalising our proposals to submit for approval by government. 

Please submit your response using this online consultation tool, as it provides an easy and efficient way to respond. It will also help us to: 

• gather all responses in one place 
• summarise responses quickly and accurately 
• reduce the cost of the consultation  

If you do not wish to respond using the online tool, you can download the response form (using the relevant link in the 'related' section at the end of this page) and email the completed form using the subject header 'Charges consultation: waste crime' to enquiries@environment-agency.gov.uk. 

You can also view the consultation document by clicking on the relevant link in the 'related' section at the end of this page.

The consultation will close on 20 January 2025. We will consider all responses received by this date before finalising our proposals to submit for approval by government.

We will publish our response to the consultation on GOV.UK within 12 weeks of this consultation closing and before we implement any changes. A link to this document will be added to the consultation page of Citizen Space.

• Consultation document - reducing waste crime and updating time and materials charges242.5 KB (Office Word 2007 XML document)
• DRAFT proposed EPR charging scheme from April 20251.5 MB (PDF document)
• Response form229.2 KB (Office Word 2007 XML document)

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Citizen Space from Delib

New environmental permitting regulations came into force on 6 April 2010.

If you have an exemption that you registered before 6 April 2010, you will need to re-register under the new system. Some activities that required an exemption under the old regulations will now need an environmental permit, eg landspreading wastes such as paper sludge or food processing wastes.

Find out about how the new regulations affect farmers on the Environment Agency website.

Find out about what standard permits are available on the Environment Agency website. 

Download guidance if you think you may need a standard permit for an existing activity from the Environment Agency website (PDF, 203K).

This guide is for businesses and waste treatment operators that send waste to a landfill site. You must also follow the rules for how to dispose of business waste.

Before you dispose of waste to landfill you must:

• treat the waste, with some exceptions - see the section on ‘Treat waste for landfill’
• classify it as hazardous or non-hazardous
• characterise it so you can decide which class of landfill site to send it to

You must complete the:

• waste information (formerly a transfer note) or hazardous waste consignment note
• waste description including the basic characterisation of the waste – see the section on ‘Characterise your waste: level 1 waste assessment’

Landfill operators must pay landfill tax on the waste they dispose of. They will normally pass that cost on to you. Read Excise Notice LFT1: a general guide to landfill tax.

A waste treatment operator or haulage contractor will usually take your waste to the landfill site. As the original producer of the waste, you must provide them with information so they can decide what treatment is needed. Read the waste duty of care code of practice.

If you treat your own waste and send it to landfill, you must follow this guide. You must also comply with the waste duty of care.

You cannot send some waste to landfill. This includes:

• any liquid waste including waste water but excluding sludge – liquid waste is defined in environmental permitting guidance: the landfill directive, section 4.14
• waste that would be explosive, corrosive, oxidising, flammable or highly flammable in the landfill
• infectious medical or veterinary waste
• chemical substances from research and development whose effects are not known
• whole or shredded used tyres – apart from bicycle tyres and tyres with a diameter of more than 1,400mm
• paper and card, plastic, metal, glass or food and garden waste that has been separately collected for recycling or composting – find out more about the Simpler Recycling requirements
• textiles and foam from waste upholstered domestic seating that contain persistent organic pollutants

Where you have treated separately collected waste paper, metal, plastic or glass, you may send residual waste from that treatment to a landfill permitted to accept it. You must use the waste hierarchy to make your decision.

Textiles and foam from waste upholstered domestic seating are likely to contain persistent organic pollutants and other hazardous chemicals. You must not send these for disposal in any class of landfill. Read manage waste upholstered domestic seating containing persistent organic pollutants (POPs).

If you cannot send your waste to landfill you must find another way to recover or dispose of it. You must comply with the waste hierarchy.

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