The Environment Agency (EA) has today (11 November) launched a new online tool to help businesses ‘be more resource efficient by putting their waste back to work’.

Currently, if a business wants to reuse a component or material from waste, it must ensure it meets legal by-product or product criteria, or be liable to waste management controls and legislation. Those failing to comply are considered to be committing an offence and face penalties.

As such, the free IsItWaste assessment tool has been developed by the EA in association with Rijkswaterstaat (the Netherlands’ Ministry of Infrastructure & the Environment) and several waste sector organisations to help businesses in England determine whether by-product or product status has been reached, and therefore whether the component/material can be reused in a new product. (This version of the tool is for England only as it’s based on English case law. A similar tool for Northern Ireland is currently being considered, and one for Wales may be implemented in the near future.)

How IsItWaste works

Based on the revised Waste Framework Directive, the tool takes users through a series of steps to identify material composition, risk assessment, product use, and end markets to assess whether end-of-waste status is likely to have been achieved.

Once the assessment is complete, it provides the user with a PDF report which can be submitted to the EA’s Definition of Waste Panel for a formal decision. The evaluation tool does not grant end-of-waste status, however, nor does it guarantee that any such result will be given by the Definition of Waste Panel should the application be formally submitted.

It is hoped that by assisting businesses in identifying end-of-waste materials, the tool will help ‘remove high-quality waste-derived products from the scope of waste legislation’ and ‘improve end-market demand and confidence and allow businesses to be more resource efficient and competitive’.

Indeed, the EA estimates that by setting out the end-of-waste quality requirements through the tool and quality protocols, the UK could increase sales of waste-derived products by £3.5 billion and reduce regulatory burden by £1.5 billion.

‘Transforming waste into useful products’

Speaking at the launch event in the Palace of Westminster this morning, EA Chief Executive Paul Leinster (pictured above) said: “The Environment Agency is launching the IsItWaste tool today. It helps businesses navigate a complex area of legislation as they seek to transform their waste into useful products. This has environmental and economic benefits.”

Resource Management Minister Dan Rogerson added: “This government is committed to ensuring we use our resources more carefully and the UK is now producing less waste than ever before. This reflects a lot of hard work by local authorities and businesses, and a desire from householders to cut down on waste.

“We all have a responsibility to tackle waste, and I congratulate the Environment Agency and their partners on the new IsItWaste service, which can help businesses save money and create new products from existing materials to generate growth and new jobs.”

The web tool has been developed as part of the EU LIFE+-funded Ensuring Quality of waste-derived products (EQua) programme, which aims to ‘support and promote the reuse and recycling of waste materials whilst protecting human health and the environment’.

As well as the EA and Rijkswaterstaat, the IsItWaste programme partners include the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM), the Environmental Services Association (ESA), the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA), the Organics Recycling Group, and Energy UK.

Steve Lee, Chief Executive of CIWM, commented: “Deriving value from waste materials by turning them back into safe, high-quality products is an essential element in the move towards a more circular economy.

“Offering both economic and environmental benefits if supported and regulated appropriately, waste-derived products improve business resource efficiency and competitiveness, reduce reliance on landfill, and help to conserve virgin raw materials.”

Learn more about the IsItWaste tool.