ESI Ltd is a technical member of CL:AIRE
ESI can guide your development through the Definition of Waste process to help you make sure that your development complies with the DoWCoP. ESI can also provide a registered Qualified Person to review your relevant documents and provide a Declaration to the Environment Agency.
Definition of Waste: Development Industry Code of Practice
CL:AIRE (Contaminated Land: Applications in Real Environments) is the current management organisation for the Definition of Waste: Development Industry Code of Practice (DoWCoP). It is now in its second version following the release in 2008, and exists to serve the following purposes:
- It sets out good practice for the development industry to use when: Assessing on a site specific basis whether excavated materials are classified as waste or not; and Determining on a site specific basis when treated excavated waste can cease to be waste for a particular use.
- It describes an auditable system to demonstrate that this DoWCoP has been adhered to.
Sourced from The Definition of Waste: Development Industry Code of Practice, Version 2
The DoWCoP has been widely adopted by the industry and has been used in a range of development applications ranging from the small scale re-use of soils on construction sites to very large earthworks and land restoration projects.
Good practice has three basic steps:
- Ensuring that an adequate Materials Management Plan (MMP) is in place, covering the use of materials on a specific site.
- Ensuring that the MMP is based on an appropriate risk assessment, that underpins the Remediation Strategy or Design Statement, concluding that the objectives of preventing harm to human health and pollution of the environment will be met if materials are used in the proposed manner.
- Ensuring that materials are actually treated and used as set out in the MMP and that this is subsequently demonstrated in a Verification Report.
Sourced from The Definition of Waste: Development Industry Code of Practice, Version 2
To confirm that steps 1 and 2 have been taken, a Qualified Person must review the relevant documents and provide a Declaration to the Environment Agency prior to the use of materials (Site of Origin scenario) or prior to dispatch (Direct and Cluster scenarios).
If it turns out that materials were not used in accordance with the MMP and risk assessment, or if it is discovered that materials are not suitable for use, are used or planned to be used in excessive quantities, or are likely to cause harm to human health or pollution of the environment, the Environment Agency may conclude that those materials have been discarded and are waste.
Further information can be found at www.claire.co.uk/CoP