Guidance

Waste exemption: NWFD 3 temporary storage of waste at a place controlled by the producer

This exemption allows you to temporarily store waste you have produced when working away from your normal business premises.

There are some exemptions which don’t need to be registered. These are called Non Waste Framework Directive (NWFD) exemptions.

It applies to organisations such as a medical or veterinary practice or a builder who carries out work at other premises and generates waste. Then the waste is brought back to the normal business premises and collected together.

Types of activity you can carry out

You can:

  • only store waste that you have produced working elsewhere, in a secure place that you have control over
  • carry out some treatments on the waste to help with storage and collection, such as separating wastes into different types

These treatments are only to make waste you have produced easier to store and collect for recovery or disposal somewhere else.

The treatments must not result in a change in the characteristics of the waste. Treatment must be purely to help with transport of collection of different wastes. Examples of such treatments include:

  • compacting paper and cardboard to increase the amount of waste that can be stored within a container
  • shredding confidential papers for security purposes
  • separating recyclables such as paper, card, plastic and glass from mixed wastes into separate containers

Types of activity you can’t carry out

You can’t:

  • provide a waste management service to others for these operations
  • mix different types of waste

Types of waste you can store

You can store any waste that you, as the producer of the waste, have control over that doesn’t contain or consist of:

  • unbonded asbestos
  • any substance that has a flash point of less than 21°C

Quantity of waste you can store

At any one time you can store up to:

  • 50 cubic metres of solid waste
  • 1,000 litres of liquid waste

Main conditions

If you store more than one type of waste, the different types must not be mixed.

The waste must not be stored for longer than 3 months.

Updates to this page

Published 28 April 2014

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