New publications this month:

DEPARTMENT FOR ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS (DEFRA)

Mandatory digital waste tracking

Defra has announced that the planned UK-wide mandatory digital waste tracking system has been delayed. The system was originally due be in place by April 2025. The service is now planned to be in force from April 2026.

Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging Service: Registration and Packaging (export) recycling notes now live on EPR  

The functionality to accept or reject Packaging Recycling Notes (PRNs) and Packaging Export Recycling Notes (PERNs) against recycling obligations for 2025 is now available on the Report Packaging Data (RPD) portal. The deadline for registration and payment is 1 April 2025.

A supporting how to video is also available.

DEFRA, WELSH GOVERNMENT, SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT AND DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, ENVIRONMENT AND RURAL AFFAIRS (DAERA) (NORTHERN IRELAND)

UK joint policy statement on extended producer responsibility for packaging

This policy statement supports the introduction of the Extended Producer Responsibility scheme for Packaging (pEPR). The intended outcomes of pEPR are set out alongside methods to deliver these. The intended outcomes are:

• The use of environmentally sustainable packaging;
• The prevention of packaging becoming waste;
• An increase in the reuse of packaging, and in the quantity and quality of packaging materials recycled; and
• A reduction in the packaging material placed on the market.

DEPARTMENT FOR ENERGY SECURITY AND NET ZERO AND ENVIRONMENT AGENCY

Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS)

Guidance has been updated to reflect ESOS phase 4 requirements. Further information has been added on how ESOS action plans can be submitted until 5 March 2025 using the MESOS system.

UK ETS installations: reporting on cessation of operations (UKETS16A FAR)

Guidance is provided on reporting the cessation of operations at UK ETS installations and the corresponding effect on free allocations.

DEFRA AND ENVIRONMENT AGENCY

Surface water pollution risk assessment for your environmental permit

Instructions on undertaking assessments for estuaries or coastal waters have been updated to include instructions on calculating background data where upstream or background data are not available.

DEPARTMENT FOR ENERGY SECURITY AND NET ZERO

UK ETS: Hospital and Small Emitter status

The baseline data reporting template for hospital and small emitter status applications in the 2026 to 2030 period is now available. Applications will be accepted between 1 April and 30 June 2025.

UK ETS 2025 Baseline Data Collection and HSE/USE scheme status: how to meet the data submission requirements

Guidance is provided on submitting applications and baseline data for the Hospital and small emitter and ultra-small emitter schemes during the 1 April through 30 June 2025 window.

ENVIRONMENT AGENCY

Packaging data: check reporting periods and submission deadlines

This new document details when large and small organisations obligated under the extended producer responsibility for packaging must collect and submit their packaging data. Submission is required six-monthly for large organisations and annually for small organisations.

Environmental permits: when and how you are charged

This charging guidance has been updated to provide further information and to reflect current charges.

MCERTS personnel competency standard: manual stack emissions monitoring

Competency requirements for level 2 staff recertification have been amended. Updated requirements concern trainee supervision.

Change, transfer or cancel your environmental permit

Applications to surrender permits must now be accompanied with the Part A: About you form.

Waste incinerator plant: apply for R1 status

This guidance has been updated to clarify the process for applications before commissioning a waste incineration plant.

Classify some waste electrical devices and components, and wastes from their treatment

Guidance is now provided on compressors removed from waste temperature exchange equipment (WTEE).

WEEE: evidence and national protocols guidance

This guidance for WEEE producer compliance schemes has been updated for clarity purposes.

Managing a climate change agreement (CCA)

An error relating to target periods and CCA eligibility has been corrected.

Environment Agency enforcement and sanctions policy

Further information is provided on the enforcement of CCAs.

Flood risk asset maintenance and inspection: good practice guidance

Good practices for asset maintenance and inspection are set out.

Low risk waste positions: electrical equipment, including constituent parts and accessories

LRWP 48 (Storing and treating scroll compressors from air conditioning and refrigeration units) has been removed as it is no longer needed.

Low risk waste positions: miscellaneous

LRWP 67 (Repairing, refurbishing and cleaning intermediate bulk containers (IBCs) formally used in the food industry) has been removed as it is no longer needed.

Regulatory Position Statements (RPSs)

The following new and updated RPSs were published during February 2025:

• Use of manufactured topsoil: RPS 190: updated, providing current links to relevant standard rules permits.
• Using waste fire extinguishers for training: RPS 221: updated, next due for review by 31 December 2027.
• Shredding waste upholstered domestic seating containing POPs: RPS 264: updated, now includes requirements of the former RPS 297 (monitoring fugitive emissions from shredding waste). This RPS is due to be reviewed by 1 December 2026.
• Storing and depressurising nominally empty nitrous oxide canisters: RPS 289: updated, next due for review 1 October 2026.
• Classify excavated waste from street and utility works: RPS 298: updated, expiry date extended to 30 September 2025.
• Storing and managing excavated waste from street works: RPS 299: updated, correction made and expiry date extended to 30 September 2025.
• Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging (pEPR) producer data requirements: RPS 330: New, concerns the collection and reporting of nation of sale and self-managed organisational waste data for the 2024 and 2025 years. This RPS will be withdrawn on 31 December 2026.

MARITIME AND COASTGUARD AGENCY (MCA)

The following notes and notices relevant to the environment were published or updated during February 2025:

• MGN 675 (M+F) Amendment 1 The merchant shipping (control and management of ships' ballast water and sediments) Regulations 2022.
• MIN 669 (M+F) Amendment 1 - Reporting emissions data into the UK MRV regime
• MSN 1908 (M+F) Amendment 1 The merchant shipping (control and management of ships' ballast water and sediments) regulations 2022

SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT

Investing in nature: a plan to support investment in biodiversity and climate adaptation in Scotland

This plan aims to support Scotland’s Strategic Biodiversity Framework by creating a nature finance system to fund and finance positive biodiversity outcomes.

DAERA

General Guidance for Applying for a Waste Management Licence - Applying Online

Guidance is provided on the use of DAERA’s new online service that allows users to apply for a new waste management, mobile plant and ATF licence, modify a licence, transfer a licence or surrender a licence.

Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging and Packaging Waste) Regulations 2024 nation of sale and self-managed organization waste reporting regulatory position statement

This regulatory position statement concerns reporting requirements for nation of sale and self-managed organisational waste data under the extended producer responsibility for packaging.

Multiple penalties for man who operated an illegal waste site in Aberdeenshire

A man who operated an illegal waste site in Aberdeenshire has received a community payback order, a confiscation order and an 18-month supervision requirement.

The man was given the penalties for keeping controlled waste without the required licence and disposing of controlled waste by burning between 2020 and 2022. The man also pled guilty of failing to remove waste from the site as required by a SEPA Statutory Notice.

Many local residents living in the vicinity of the site complained over a two-year period regarding the deposit and burning of waste and the impact it was having on the local community.

While on site, SEPA officers noted a range of controlled waste, including construction and demolition waste, furniture, carpets, gas canisters, waste electrical and electronic equipment, white goods and waste vehicles. The officers also noted evidence of burning of mattresses, carpets, wood, household, building and garden waste.

Police Scotland and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service were called out on multiple occasions even after SEPA officers had made it clear that the burning of waste at the site was unauthorised and unacceptable.

A Statutory Notice was served in 2021 requiring the man to remove all unauthorised controlled waste from the land by 2 February 2022. The waste was not removed by this deadline and so the Notice was not complied with.

Another individual was also fined for disposing of controlled waste by burning at the site. C and K Removals Limited was charged with depositing waste at the site, despite there being no authorisation in place for the company to do so.

Breach

The man was fined for breaching the Section 33(1)(b)(i) and Section 33(6) and Section 59(1)(a) and Section 59(5) to the Environmental Protection Act 1990:

• Section 33(1)(b)(i) prohibits treating, keeping or disposing of controlled waste, or knowingly causing or knowingly permitting controlled waste to be treated, kept or disposed of in or on any land except under and in accordance with a waste management licence.
• Section 33(6) means that persons who contravene Section 33(1) or any condition of a waste management licence commit an offence.
• Section 59(1)(a) enables SEPA to service notices requiring the occupier to remove waste from the land within a specified period.
• Section 59(5) sets penalties for persons who fail to comply with notices issued under Section 59(1).

C and K Removals Ltd was fined for breaching Section 33(1)(a) and Section 33(6) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990.

Penalty

The man received a 150-hour community payback order, a £3,000 confiscation order under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and an 18-month supervision requirement.

C and K Removals Limited was fined £240.

Three men arrested as part of an investigation into fly tipping at a Kent SSSI

Three men were arrested on 5 February 2025 as part of an investigation into the large-scale, illegal tipping of waste at the Hoads Wood Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Ashford, Kent.

Environment Agency Enforcement Officers, Kent Police and the Joint Unit for Waste Crime worked closely together to secure the arrests and custody of the suspects.

All three men were interviewed and evidence obtained during the arrests will support the next stages of the investigation.

The Environment Agency began a criminal investigation in 2023 after 30,000 tonnes of household and construction waste, piled 15 feet high in places, was discovered to have been dumped throughout Hoads Wood. 

The Environment Agency subsequently secured a court order, banning unauthorised access to the woodland and to successfully stop more waste being dumped. The regulator also appointed a specialist company to remove the waste and help restore the site.

The Environment Agency investigation seeks to establish those responsible for co-ordinating the offending and bring them to court.

Dorset Estate fined for illegal water abstractions

Ilchester Estate in Dorset has received a variable monetary penalty for exceeding the maximum flow limits set by its abstraction licence.

Ilchester Estate has a licence to abstract water from a spring on the headwaters of the Dorset Frome chalk stream at Evershot. The water is used to supply houses, offices, gardens and farms making up the estate. The estate applies its own charges for supplying the abstracted water to businesses and residents on the estate.

The licence allows the estate to abstract up to 66.6 cubic metres of water a day, but following an investigation by the Environment Agency, it was found that between December 2022 and July 2023 the authorised licence limit had been exceeded by a total of nearly 7,500 cubic metres. Between December 2022 and January 2023, Wessex was officially in a drought.  

The Environment Agency had warned the estate to stop over abstracting water. In 2018 the estate was advised by the Environment Agency of how an increase to their permitted abstraction levels could be applied for. Instead, the estate had said steps would be taken to reduce the amount of water being taken.

Breach

Ilchester Estates was found to have breached section 24 to the Water Resources Act 1991.

• Section 24 applies restrictions on abstractions, including a prohibition on abstractions except in accordance with a licence.

Penalty

The estate received a variable monetary penalty (VMP) of £19,777.69, plus costs of £8,298.60.