Waste Definition
Freegle facilitates re-use
A waste licence is only required for carrying or receiving waste. Defra (who create the legislation) is in process of producing some written clarification with the Environment Agency (who issue licences) to try a clear the murky waters of interpretation. The current government document is dated 2012, and there is a guide to definitions, dated 2021 (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/legal-definition-of-waste-guidance/decide-if-a-material-is-waste-or-not)
From August 2012 Defra document, now not in use, but being superseded in 2024/2025 https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/69590/pb13813-waste-legal-def-guide.pdf
Transfer to another person
G3.45 Sometimes a person may not have a use for a substance or object but may know that some other person would have use for it. The questions in such cases are whether the fact that the first person wants to get rid of the substance or object means that it is waste or whether the fact that another person has a use for it means that it is not waste? The answer is that simply transferring a substance or object from one person to another does not in itself affect its classification as waste.
G3.46 For example, the Freecycle Network™ is a scheme aimed at encouraging people to offer to others, free of charge, goods they no longer have a use for (e.g. a television (TV) or personal computer (PC)). In many ways,this is similar to someone taking clothes to a charity shop. And in neither case is the substance or object waste. In both cases, the substance or object is being transferred with the intention that it should continue to be used for its original purpose (i.e. it is being re-used as non-waste).
G3.47 However, a TV or PC is classified as waste if a householder decides to take their TV or PC to a local authority/district council “civic amenity site”. This is because civic amenity sites are facilities which local authorities/district councils, as waste disposal authorities, have a duty to provide as places “at which persons resident in its area may deposit their household waste...”. The intention of the householder in taking the TV or PC to a civic amenity site is to ensure that it can be safely recovered/recycled or disposed of.
recycled vs. reused
Recycling occurs with waste and reuse prevents waste. Legal Definitions
G3.1 Article 3(1) of the Waste Framework Directive 30(WFD) defines “waste” as:-“...any substance or object which the holder discards or intends or is required to discard...”
“’re-use’ means any operation by which products or components that are not waste are used again for the same purpose for which they were conceived;” “recycling is any recovery operation by which waste materials are reprocessed into products, materials or substances whether for the original or other purposes. It includes the reprocessing of organic material but does not include energy recovery and the reprocessing into materials that are to be used as fuels or for backfilling operations”. "The definition of recycling requires the waste to be re-processed so as to obtain a product, material or substance whether for the original or other purposes." "recycling can only ever be carried out on substances or objects that are classified as waste"
Waste Prevention
‘minimising the quantity (weight and volume) and hazardousness of household-derived waste, generated in a defined community’ Includes avoidance, reduction and reuse.
Cat
Brighton
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