What do I do with my waste soil?

If you have undertaken a building project, you will have disposed of waste soils. Whether removed off-site due to groundworks, installation of services / foundations, these soils would be classified as a waste.

Under the Technical Guidance WM3, one of the main responsibilities of the waste producer is to classify the waste to determine its hazardous properties. There is a lot at stake if you have not adequately classified your waste soil including:

Unnecessary disposal costs
Rejection of soil at Landfill
Prosecution or Tax fines

Testing the soil is a small price to pay compared to the cost of delay or inappropriate disposal to the wrong waste disposal site. HMRC is working closely with the Environment Agency to prosecute offenders who have avoided paying a higher rate of landfill tax by not classifying their waste correctly. Landfills can reject soil loads which do not have proper waste classification resulting in expensive delays to your project.

The sooner you get absolute clarity on the classification of any waste soils, the sooner you can plan for the most cost-effective way to dispose it.

Remember waste soils must fall into one of two categories, Hazardous soils (17-05-03) and Non-Hazardous soils (17-05-04); Inert is not a waste category!

It is a common misunderstanding that you only need a WAC to disposal of soils. Instead, you need to determine if the soils are hazardous or non-hazardous through a suitable suite of chemical testing, not a WAC.

If your project is likely to involve the disposal of waste soils, or if you would like some advice, please get in touch with us to discuss how we can help.

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Waste Acceptance Criteria