Health and Safety at work and associated legislation is well known but there is also a variety of environmental legislation relating to the waste that we produce and the disposal of this waste.
Organisations (and individuals!) have a duty of care placed upon them to ensure that waste is disposed of sensibly. There is a variety of waste products where special considerations are placed upon them and this includes not only hazardous waste but materials such as wood, gypsum and plasterboard and waste electrical and electronic equipment.
Segregation of waste (different skips or recycling points) not only makes sense to the pocket in terms of lower waste fees (from preventing manual segregation at skip transfer stations) but also helps to raise recycling rates and thereby lowering the amount of waste materials being sent to landfill.
Organisations can carry out an environmental risk assessment to understand the amount of waste generated by their daily activities (carbon footprint) and put in place the relevant measures to eliminate, reduce, recycle etc.
Further information can be found on the following websites: www.environment-agency.gov.uk,www.DEFra.gov.uk and www.WRAP.org.uk.
Individuals may also find information contained on these websites interesting to give an understanding of why we now have to separate our waste at the local tip. It also gives an insight as how we can inadvertently destroy natural habitats by simply disposing of an unwanted drink! A seemingly harmless fruit juice drink disposed of in the river could be up to 1000 times more harmful to fish and marine life then raw sewerage!
