Agricultural waste management

You can carry waste produced by your own business without registering with or notifying the Environment Agency. This means that you and your employees can move waste around your farm and take it to appropriately licensed disposal or recovery sites.

You will still have to comply with your duty of care and complete a waste transfer note when you pass the waste to another person, eg a disposal or recovery site or a waste contractor.

Before you take waste to a recovery or disposal site you will need to know how the site operates. Before going to the site you should find out:

• what wastes they can legally accept under their permit or exemption
• how much you will be charged and how you can pay (some sites don't accept money at the gate)
• what paperwork you will need to take, for example waste transfer notes
• whether you can take the waste in your vehicle (some sites won't allow a tractor and trailer on-site for health and safety reasons)
• the best way of delivering the wastes, for example in bales or loose.

When you go to the site ask the site operator to show you a copy of his permit or exemption certificate. The permit will specify whether the site can accept hazardous, non-hazardous or inert waste. It may also include or exclude specific types of waste. Check that the permit is correct for the type of waste you are disposing of.