Article Contaminated Land

Construction Waste… and how to make it disappear

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Half of construction waste already gets recycled, but the other half is still either being spread as waste (under various licensing exemptions) or simply landfilled. With the pressure to create less waste, and Site Waste Management Plans now a reality for England and Wales (and coming through the back door to Scotland) guidance on ‘when is an alleged waste not a waste’ has been published by commercial law solicitors Semple Fraser.

If correctly applied, the legal answer to that question can legitimately transform what is asserted (often by the regulators) to be ‘waste’ into a genuine non waste ‘product’.

The “CL:AIRE” advisory group on contaminated land is currently consulting on a new code of practice-( visit www.claire.co.uk to view Code of Practice), which may affect the way the regulators seek to interpret and apply Some helpful pointers to the existing law can be downloaded from Semple Fraser’s website at

http://www.semplefraser.co.uk/index.php?s=50&c=180&p=1995.