Guidance

IsItWaste tool user guide

Updated 29 March 2021

This guidance was withdrawn on 10 September 2021

The IsItWaste tool is no longer available. You can check if your material is waste or get an opinion from the Environment Agency’s definition of waste service on if a material is a by-product or meets ‘end of waste’ status. The service costs £125 an hour including VAT.

Applies to England

IsItWaste tool decommissioned

The IsItWaste tool was available to businesses. It allowed them to make a submission to the Definition of Waste service and supported ‘end of waste’ and ‘by-product’ self-assessment. The tool, originally funded by the Environment and EU life+ funding has reached the end of its life as the IT system that it is built on is no longer supported.

1. Find the IsItWaste tool

First read this guidance to gather the information you’ll need to enter into the tool.

Go to the IsItWaste tool.

It’s available from 7am to 7pm Monday to Friday. You cannot access it outside of these hours.

2. What the IsItWaste tool is

It’s a self-assessment tool to help you decide whether your material is likely to be a waste or not. It’s free to do a self-assessment.

The tool is based on the ‘by-products’ (article 5) and ‘end of waste’ (article 6) parts of the Waste Framework Directive (WFD 2008/98/EC).

This version of the tool is for England only. It’s based on English and Welsh case law. Northern Ireland and Wales may have similar tools.

The development of the IsItWaste tool was funded through the European Life Programme EQual to promote the generation and use of quality products from waste-derived materials. Please send us your feedback about the tool.

Email: dowservices@environment-agency.gov.uk.

3. Information held in the tool

The tool holds all information entered by the user. The Environment Agency comments are not held within the tool. They will be sent to the user separately if the user submits their information to request the Environment Agency’s Definition of Waste Service opinion.

The tool will keep unsubmitted assessments for 1 year from the day you started entering information. If you need longer to get and enter all the evidence in support of your answers, save it separately from the tool then you can re-enter when you have all the information available.

You can choose to delete information held in the tool at any time unless it’s submitted to us for an opinion, at which point it’s locked. Note that any information held in the tool, whether submitted or not, may be subject to Freedom of Information requests.

For more information, see section ‘How we may use your information’.

4. Definition of waste: information needed to use the tool

You can find out more about definition of waste from Defra’s legal definition of waste guidance and the Environment Agency’s guidance on Turn your waste into a new non-waste product or material.

To answer questions easily and accurately you need to understand the basic requirements of the legal tests for end of waste and by-products.

5. Tool set up

The tool has 2 separate tests and you need to choose which one is right for your situation. The first of these is for a by-product assessment, and the second is for an end of waste assessment. To decide which test to use, see Defra’s legal definition of waste guidance.

The by-product tool has these sections that cover:

• Step 1: start report (company details)
• Step 2: production and composition (of your material)
• Step 3: materials processing
• Step 4: market assessment (for the use of your intended product)
• Step 5: technical product requirements
• Step 6: Environmental and Impact Assessment
• Step 7: making a submission

The end of waste tool has these sections that cover:

• Step 1: start report (company details)
• Step 2: description and source (of your material inputs and the processing of these)
• Step 3: market assessment (for the use of your intended product)
• Step 4: technical product requirements
• Step 5: Environmental and Human Health Impact Assessment
• Step 6: making a submission

6. Use the tool

You can:

• register within the tool and have a username and password
• use the tool as a guest user, but the information will not save once you leave the site

The steps are set out as tabs in a logical order for the overall assessment. You should move through the tabs from left to right and top to bottom in numerical order. At the end of each section click on save, this will take you to the next section. You can complete the sections in a different order, for example, if you think there is a particular part of the assessment you might fail, you could do this first to avoid unnecessary effort.

The tool takes you through a series of questions with ‘yes’, ‘no’ and ‘do not know’ options. Often you’ll be prompted to put in some text or upload a document in support of your answer. Most questions and document uploads are mandatory and you will not be able to complete an assessment without answering these. A mandatory question is indicated with an asterisk.

You can see the status of the assessment and which mandatory questions still need to be answered at the top of the questionnaire.

The result of the self-assessment is totally dependent on the answers you submitted to the questions in the tool. It’s not verified by us, does not grant ‘end of waste’ status and does not guarantee the result if you decide to submit to us for our opinion.

6.1 By-product tool

Step 1: start report

If you’re not the producer of the material you’ll need to show you have their permission to complete the questionnaire.

You’ll need to have a proper understanding of the material that you’re about to assess through this tool. The questions require you to have sufficient data and information.

If your activities are regulated under an environmental permit or an exemption, you’ll need to provide some details. You do not need to attach a copy of your permit. You’ll need to provide the permit reference number and the name of your regulatory officer.

Step 2: production and composition

In this section you’ll need to provide information on:

• the composition of the material and any compositional variability
• details of the production process that give rise to the material
• details of any technical amendments made to the process to enable its production

Step 3: materials processing

In this section you’ll need to provide information on any further processing that occurs before the material can be used.

Step 4: market assessment

You’ll need to provide evidence of your current and/or prospective purchasers for your material. You’ll also need to provide evidence of the price or economic benefit you’ll receive for your material.

Step 5: technical product requirements

This section is where you detail the relevant product standards the material meets and any additional customer requirements.

Step 6: environmental and impact assessment

In this section you need to provide information on the environmental and human health impacts from the material. You need to show that there are no properties of your material, including trace components or contaminants, which will lead to an unacceptable risk.

If there’s a non-waste comparator for the same end use, you can compare this with your material. You’ll need to include any characteristics of your material that are different from the non-waste comparator.

You also need to upload analysis of your material, clearly demonstrating its composition and that it will cause no worse environmental impact than the relevant non-waste comparator.

Alternatively you can carry out a generic or site specific risk assessment.

For help on how to complete this risk assessment, see guidance End of waste and by-product hazard and risk assessment.

Step 7: making a submission

Once you’ve completed all the mandatory questions, the tool will provide an indicative outcome. You can print a PDF summary of your questionnaire. The indicative outcome is based on the information you put into the tool and has not been validated by the Environment Agency.

If your material is not waste, you’ll need to comply with all relevant and applicable product legislation, for example the registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals (REACH) regulations or Ground Water Authorisations. It’s your responsibility to check what relevant legislation applies.

6.2 End of waste tool

Step 1: start report

See section 6.1, step 1.

Step 2: description and source

In this section you’ll need to provide information on:

• the waste(s) used to make the material you are assessing, where these wastes come from and details of the processes used
• details of the composition and consistency of the waste(s) you process – you should include specific analysis or data you have for each waste to be processed
• details of the wastes European Waste Catalogue (EWC) code and whether the waste is classified as hazardous waste
• data on any raw/non-waste materials you use with the waste(s) to manufacture the waste-derived product
• details of the composition and consistency of the material you are assessing, including specific analysis or data clearly demonstrating its constituents
• the sampling and analysis used (including detection levels) – this should be United Kingdom Accredited Service (UKAS) accredited or, if not, you should provide evidence validating your chosen method

This information will be used for the Environmental and Human Health Impact Assessment.

Step 3: market assessment

See section 6.1, step 3.

Step 4: technical product requirements

This section is where you compare your material against an equivalent non-waste comparator. If the material use is to replace a component in a blended final product, then it should be a direct substitute for the original raw material used as that individual component. You need to provide information and a reference on standards that the material will meet. You do not need to upload the standard.

For more information and data for commonly used comparators see reports Defining product comparators to use when applying waste-derived materials to land.

Step 5: environmental and human health impact

In this section you need to provide information on the environmental and human health impacts from the material. This is usually a comparison with the non-waste material alternative. You need to show that there are no properties of your material, including trace components or contaminants, which will lead to an unacceptable risk.

If there is a non-waste comparator for the same end use, you need to compare this with your material. You’ll need to include any characteristics of the waste-derived product that are different from the non-waste comparator. You also need to upload analysis of your waste-derived product, clearly demonstrating its composition and that it will cause no worse environmental impact than the relevant non-waste comparator.

If there is not a non-waste comparator for your material you’ll need to carry out a generic or site specific risk assessment.

For help in completing this risk assessment, see separate guidance End of waste and by-product hazard and risk assessment.

Step 6: making a submission

See section 6.1, step 7.

7. How we may use your information

Data you enter into the tool is saved for 1 year from the date you opened a new assessment. Print or save the PDF summary if you want to keep a copy of the assessment. Submitted data to the Environment Agency is held for at least 6 years.

If you submit your completed questionnaire to the Environment Agency, it’s your responsibility to tell us if it contains confidential information.

If we receive requests under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FoIA) and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR) we may be obliged, as a public authority, to disclose some of your information. We can only withhold the information within the submission where an exception(s) applies.

The most common exception relates to withholding specific commercially sensitive information. Even where this exception applies, the EIR require that if the information relates to data on emissions we have to release it.

When we consider information requests we must balance the need to protect the interests of a particular business against a wider test of public interest. Please take this into account when deciding whether to submit your proposal.

See more about the obligations of public authorities to disclose information to the public.

8. Glossary

By-product

A production residue that fulfils the criteria in Article 5 of the WFD 2008 and in doing so, is a non-waste. This means that all by-products should be subject, where applicable, to product legislation and REACH. If the production residue does not fulfil all the criteria, it fails the by-product test and the production residue will be a waste.

Hazard

A situation or biological, chemical or physical agent that may lead to harm or cause adverse effects.

Material

This guidance refers to the material being assessed for end of waste or by-product status.

Product

All materials and objects deliberately and intentionally produced by a production process. There may be more than one intended product created by a production process.

Production residue

All materials and objects that are not deliberately and intentionally produced in a production process. It may or may not be waste. It’s something other than the end product that the manufacturing process directly seeks to produce and is an unavoidable consequence of producing the intended product.

Risk

The consequence(s) of a hazard(s) being realised, and their likelihoods/probabilities.

Risk assessment

The formal process of evaluating the consequence(s) of a hazard(s) being realised and their likelihoods/probabilities.

Technical choice

Where production of the material concerned is the result of a ‘technical choice’, it cannot be a production residue and is considered a product. If the producer could have produced the intended product without producing the material concerned, but chose not to do so, this can be evidence that the material concerned is a product and not a production residue. Modification of the production process to give the material concerned specific technical characteristics can be evidence that the material is a non-waste product.

Waste

“…any substance or object which the holder discards or intends or is required to discard” (Directive 2008/98/EC).