Absolutely any business which produces waste has a duty of care to dispose of that waste correctly, which usually means passing its waste on to a waste carrier, and checking that that carrier has a waste management licence or is exempt from the requirement to have one.

Businesses which make or buy in packaging must ensure that the packaging complies with the Packaging (Essential Requirements) Regulations. They should always be aware of the precise ingredients in the packaging, as it is their responsibility to ensure that it contains no more than the permitted levels of cadmium, mercury, lead and hexavalent chromium. The packaging should also be recoverable, in one of the ways specified by these regulations.

Businesses, or groups of businesses, with a turnover of at least £2m and which handle packaging in quantities of over 50 tonnes per year have to meet certain targets for recovering and recycling of their packaging, under the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations. ‘Packaging’ includes wooden pallets. The future targets for percentages of packaging which must be recovered or recycled are currently subject to consultation. It is possible to join a compliance scheme which takes care of these recovery and recycling obligations. These regulations also set limits on the levels of certain hazardous substances that can be present in packaging, and a condition that packaging is produced in a way that minimises resources used and makes the packaging easier to recycle.

Posted: January 30th, 2008 under Business Regulation.
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