As a business owner, it’s crucial that you fully understand your responsibility and duty of care in regard to your commercial waste.
Not only is it detrimental to the environment to dispose of your waste incorrectly. But it is also illegal and can impose costly fines on your business.
Find out more about what exactly commercial waste is and your duty of care towards it in our latest blog:
What is Commercial Waste?
Commercial waste is essentially any type of waste that is produced by a business on its premises. If you work from home, then any waste produced from that part of your home also counts as commercial waste.
People often get commercial waste confused with hazardous or confidential waste. Although these types of waste can be included with commercial waste – so can all of your general waste and dry mixed recycling waste, too.
Common types of commercial waste can include food, plastic, glass, wood, construction waste and more.
Your Commercial Waste Duty of Care
If your business produces waste of any kind, you are legally obliged to store and dispose of it responsibly. You have a duty of care to follow government standards, as outlined below:
Keep Waste to A Minimum
First and foremost, it is your responsibility to try to reduce your waste as much as possible. You must proactively look at ways to reduce, reuse and recycle your waste rather than it just be sent to landfill.
To reduce the amount of waste you produce, you could look to work and purchase more efficiently. For example by ordering any merchandise in bulk rather than separate orders that create more packaging to dispose of.
Look for ways you could reuse certain types of waste. Such as by investing in company water bottles. Finally, when waste is created, you should look to recycle it as your first point of call. Educate your team on recycling – and start implementing small recycling procedures at work such as by adding recycling bins in the canteen.
Store Your Waste Safely and Securely
To store your waste in the best way possible, you should consider hiring commercial bins and containers from a local waste management company that are able to regularly collect your waste for you.
You should speak to them about the types of bins they can offer as all types of waste should be stored separately. Such as mixed recycling bins or individual bins for different types of waste. All bins should also be labelled for the type of waste they can take to help with the recycling process.
As well as containing your waste correctly – it’s crucial that your bins are stored somewhere secure. If your waste is accessible, then it can also be susceptible to be added to. If you share land for example, then it could be a good idea to opt for lockable bins.
A lot of people may not realise but, unfortunately, if your site becomes victim to fly-tipping – then this waste actually becomes your responsibility. Therefore you should take all measures possible to enhance your perimeter security and to prevent intruders from accessing your land. You could do this by adding simple security measures such as locked gates at night and implementing CCTV systems.
Complete a Waste Transfer Note
By law, it’s essential that you have a waste transfer note for any waste that leaves your commercial premises.
The waste transfer note should be provided by your waste management company – who should complete their part of it and sign it. You should also fill in any parts that apply to you and sign it on behalf of your business.
When collecting your waste, it’s imperative that your waste management company provide you with the waste transfer note. As you may be required to show it to either the council or local environment agency to prove where your waste has been transferred to a later date.
Check If Your Waste Carrier Is Registered
It’s essential that the waste carrier you choose to work with is registered to dispose of waste by the Environmental Agency. You can do a quick check on any business on their website here.
If you choose to work with a company that isn’t registered – then it’s likely that they will attempt to dispose of your waste illegally. This is harmful to the environment, and can also cause you to be liable.
If you see a company posing to be a registered waste carrier that isn’t, then you should report them to Crimestoppers immediately.
What About Hazardous Waste?
If your business produces hazardous waste; such as asbestos, paints, oils etc; then you must dispose of this in a different way to ensure it isn’t harmful to any humans or the environment.
At KCM, Our Rotherham based site is ISO9001 and ISO14001 accredited. And we can provide a Waste Disposal Note to certify the safe disposal of your hazardous waste.
How KCM Waste Management Can Help
With KCM, managing your commercial and trade waste doesn’t have to be hard work! There are many benefits to choosing our commercial waste disposal service.
We’re happy to collect waste from anywhere on your commercial premises or from a home-based business. Your waste will be collected by a member of our refuse team on an allocated day of the week. We’ll arrive onsite and remove your waste with as little disruption as possible to your working day.
Once we bring your waste back to our fully licensed recycling centre in Rotherham, South Yorkshire – it is separated, cleaned, and recycled accordingly.
We are proud to recycle 99% of the waste we collect and are committed to operating as a zero-to-landfill trade waste centre.
Would you like to discuss your commercial waste collections? Please either email our friendly team on bins@kcmwaste-com.stackstaging.com or give us a call on 01709 794 888.