Working Groups
What is a Working Group?
Our working groups focus on specific areas of interest and bring together dedicated smaller teams of people to work on these topics. They are likely to evolve and change over time, reflecting the interests and needs of the WACT membership and the evolving nature of waste crime and compliance.
WACT Working Groups
Landowners
The WaCT group are supporting the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors to contribute towards a new UK Guidance Note intended for landowners and waste operator tenants when there is waste-related activity. Intended to be published early 2021 to support the imminent Environment Bill and will provide best practice guidelines for surveyors and property managers who operate within the waste sector.
Subject to public consultation, the key principles of the guidance note will be for landowners and waste operators to work closely together via an agreed governing policy, a tailored commercial ‘waste lease’ and an agreed set of management guidelines based on industry wide recommended standards. This encourages the sharing of data and demonstrating environmental best practice to drive the UK’s continued development of cleaner waste technology and practices.
Leads: Mark McKay and Network Rail/RICS
Insurance
The WaCT group are currently in discussions with insurance brokers to explore existing and potential new products and policies in the waste sector. By reviewing such existing policies, for example environment impairment and pollution legal liability, the WaCT group are testing the current market to see if new policies or existing policies can be evolved to reflect the current market today. Intention is to inform, educate and enable protection for parties in the waste sector against events like waste crime.
Leads: Mark McKay and Sophie Walker
Introduction of DRS
Scotland will soon be the first part of the UK to introduce a deposit return scheme for drinks containers. The objective is to make it easier for everyone to recycle their used bottles and cans, including all drinks sold in PET plastic, metal and glass. Every drink container (made of plastic, glass or metal) sold in Scotland will have 20p deposit attached to it, which is refunded when the container is returned for recycling. The scheme is being coordinated by Zero Waste Scotland and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) will act as the regulator.
Every drinks containers made of PET plastic, metal, glass 50ml<3000ml will be covered by the scheme, with an estimated 1.2bn containers per year. All Scottish retailers will be required to provide a return point to collect the containers for recycling, with only limited exemptions. The onus will be on producers to register with SEPA, to include the deposit charge which will be pass through to the consumer until the container is returned. The producer will also be responsible for arranging the collection of containers and paying a reasonable fee to the retailers who provide the return point. Retailers in turn may only sell from registered producers and will provide information to the customer on how to return the container.
The Scheme will go live on 1 July 2022 and It is hoped to achieve 90% recovery of containers within the first three years of operation.
The Waste Compliance Taskforce working group will focus on the implementation of the deposit return scheme in Scotland. Members will consider the experience of the sector, any opportunities for waste crime which may arise and provide support and ideas to prevent and disrupt those who may seek to take advantage of this emerging scheme for criminal gain.
Leads: SEPA
Exports with an initial focus on plastics
The Export Waste Crime working group brings together a number of organisations and experts to look at addressing the growing challenge of crime in relation to exports.
We have taken a waste stream specific approach and are focussing on the issue of plastic waste crime that is effecting the UK, both in its own country and through exports.
Building on the wider WaCT group’s ethos, the working group looks to provide a forum for collaborative, cross-sector working to improve a greater understanding of, and compliance with waste regulations, and engage with UK environmental regulators and policy makers to support more effective ways to prevent and tackle waste crime.
Meeting quarterly, the group addresses the wider issues of good, bad and ugly of waste export, PRN and ePRN prices, material quality, bale specifications and investment in infrastructure. Through this, the group seeks to find ways to disincentivise and create a robust way of tackling the issue of waste crime, ultimately reducing incidences of waste crime associated with the UK’s waste exports, and in the first instance, the UK’s plastic stream.
Leads: RECOUP
Strategic work on Duty of Care
The working group focussing on the strategic view of duty of care is broadly focussed on three main areas.
- National (UK-wide) developments to promote and improve duty of care. Examples of this might be mandatory waste tracking, reforms to the Carrier Broker Dealer regime, digitalisation, professionalisation or FPNs.
- Thinking creatively or innovatively about intercepting waste producers at the decision-making point to prevent them choosing an illegal operator.
- Acting as a champion of the best schemes and approaches out there on fly tipping prevention and signposting to those (to avoid duplicating work).
Meeting quarterly, the group is prioritising key areas to tackle to maximise the group’s impact and offer a strategic contribution to promoting and strengthening duty of care.