Hertfordshire, UK - Last September the government invited comments on environmental legislation as part of its Red Tape Challenge which aimed to reduce regulation and so promote growth and jobs.
Retailers had already had their say, leading to the scrapping of 160 out of 258 arcane laws, such as needing an alcohol licence to sell chocolate liqueurs. Manufacturing, road transportation, utilities and energy, and housing and construction were also being looked at.
A lot of environmental legislation is fairly recent. When I first worked in the waste industry there was very little legislation governing environmental protection. The Environmental Protection Act of 1990 was implemented through a myriad of regulations, such as Duty of Care and Registration of Carriers. Legislation now goes through a due diligence process to look at its impact on business. In the last 10 years the EU has driven legislation, requiring its directives to be incorporated into national legislation. Waste management licensing, pollution, air and water discharge permits have now all been consolidated under the overarching legislation of Environmental Permitting, as required for the revised Waste Framework Directive. Also environmental legislation has transformed the way in which businesses operate and manage their processes. In my early days of inspecting waste facilities and hazardous waste generating businesses, standards of environmental protection and awareness were shocking compared to today. Just as you don't see people smoking at their desks nowadays, you also do not tend to see barrels of hazardous waste dumped into mixed waste skips destined for landfill now either. Our tolerance for such behaviour has changed mainly due to legislation dictating what is considered to be acceptable.
New legislation drives innovation as those who are able to align their products and processes to higher levels of performance more quickly are also able to compete more effectively. The Code for Sustainable Homes sets out requirements for zero carbon homes by 2016. Manufacturers and housebuilders have developed new building systems and products that can meet these future requirements now, which is why we have code level 6 homes being built today.
Construction projects in England have, since 2008, had to complete a Site Waste Management Plan. The benefits from having a SWMP exceed the cost of implementation at the point of the works costing £300,000, which is why the threshold is set at this level. Most builders feel that SWMPs offer some financial benefits, but they believe that the main benefits are non-financial: better site management, fewer environmental impacts, improved health and safety, and improving the company and industry image. The SWMP regulations will be reviewed as part of the Red Tape Challenge and there is a risk that they will be scrapped despite the consensus that benefits outweigh costs because the government wants to be seen to be cutting red tape.
Scrapping SWMPs does not make sense but there are ways in which they could be improved, such as better enforcement by the Environment Agency or Local Authority. That this enforcement responsibility has not been clearly defined must be the root cause of ad-hoc and infrequent inspections. Also, increasing responsibility for designers and clients in terms of SWMPs would drive forward waste prevention and make the process have a far greater impact than leaving everything to the main contractor to sort out. Finally, an integration of aspects of Environmental Permitting with SWMPs would make it easier to reuse and recycle inert materials. Current limitations on reusing materials such as aggregates and clean soils are definitely over the top and probably unenforceable.
BRE Ltd
Red Tape Challenge: Waste
Story Type: Feature
ID: 64261
