The UK and Ireland’s environmental regulators are strengthening their collaboration on tackling criminality within the waste industry, following a summit in Edinburgh last week (17 November).
The summit – which was hosted by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) – also focussed on ways that the agencies could collaborate on driving resource efficiency.
Tackling criminality within the waste industry was one of the topics discussed at the meeting, hosted by SEPA
The meeting involved the chief executives from each of the five agencies – the Environment Agency (EA), Natural Resources Wales (NRW), the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA), Ireland’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and SEPA.
According to SEPA, the meeting reinforced the extensive partnership working underway on key regulatory issues, such as duty of care and cross border transport of waste.
The five agencies are said to share a common aim of protecting and improving the environment and creating the conditions for driving successful, sustainable economies, where resources are used efficiently in order to maximise their value and significantly reduce waste production.
Topics
Major topics discussed at the summit included intelligence sharing, waste tracking and improving the quality of recyclate. It also explored the practical actions which would actively strengthen and support each agency to drive increased resource use and target non-compliant waste operations across the UK and Ireland.
“Co-operation is the key to tackling the biggest challenges facing our environment and while each of our agencies already work very closely across a wide spectrum of regulation, today’s meeting strengthens our approach and cements our commitment to creating a truly circular economy.”
Terry A’Hearn
SEPA
Terry A’Hearn, chief executive of SEPA and chair of Friday’s meeting, said: “Co-operation is the key to tackling the biggest challenges facing our environment and while each of our agencies already work very closely across a wide spectrum of regulation, today’s meeting strengthens our approach and cements our commitment to creating a truly circular economy.
“The most successful businesses in the future will be those that are not just compliant, but which are also low carbon, low material use, low water use and low waste, seeing environmental excellence as an opportunity, not a problem.
However, Mr A’Hearn warned: “If, on the other hand, you have no interest in being careful with our finite resources, or no care for the environment in the way you dispose of waste, you will find our resolve is strong. We will use our regulatory powers to make it tough for those with a poor attitude and poor performance.”
The post Environmental regulators ‘strengthen’ collaboration appeared first on letsrecycle.com.
Source: letsrecycle.com General
