Reconomy shapes industry progress in the Electronic Duty of Care (EDOC) Programme for the Waste Sector

Thu, Apr 12, 2012 15:36 CET

Reconomy, the UK’s leading broker of Waste Management and Recycling services, is leading the challenge to replace the existing inefficient paper-based Waste Transfer Note system with a faster, more accurate online system for the Waste Sector.

EDOC, the Electronic Duty of Care programme, led by the Environment Agency in partnership with Reconomy, the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM), WRAP (the Waste & Resources Action Programme) the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) the Welsh Government (WG) the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) and DEFRA, has been set up as part of the Government's “Red Tape Challenge” in which Environmental Secretary Caroline Spelman unveiled proposals following the consultation period stemming from April 2011.

The Environment Agency estimates that approximately 25 million waste transfer notes are produced in the UK each year with around 50 million paper documents being stored at any one time due to UK legislation surrounding waste transfer notes.

Putting the obvious environmental and cost implications aside, there is a huge opportunity for the waste industry to make a real difference to the way it operates, providing real opportunities to businesses right across the spectrum via the introduction of the EDOC system.

Reconomy was invited to join the panel of experts to provide a commercial focus to the project, which aims to produce a national database that allows users to upload data directly to it, enabling the monitoring of waste flows throughout the UK.

Duty of Care in waste handling

Brian Marshall, Reconomy’s Environment and Compliance Manager said: “Under UK legislation, all businesses have a Duty of Care to ensure they produce, store, transport and dispose of their waste without harming the environment. One of their responsibilities under this legislation is to produce a Waste Transfer Note and keep this record for a minimum of two years from the date of transfer.

“The current paper-based system makes it difficult for most companies (producers) to track their waste to ensure it is disposed of correctly. A further issue is the lack of information available to regulators, especially regarding commercial and industrial sector waste that gives little opportunity to make use of the waste hierarchy and therefore provide an understanding of its waste streams. By having more detailed information available, opportunities for additional innovations in recycling and recovery together with a greater understanding of waste streams and prevention would become a possibility”.

Under the current system, information associated with each waste transfer is recorded on a Waste Transfer Note, a copy of which is retained by the transferor (or holder of the waste) and transferee (the recipient). Normally, ownership of the waste will pass from the transferor to the transferee as the waste moves along the chain of custody, with both parties required to keep their copy of the Waste Transfer Note and retain it for the period specified by current legislation. However under the EDOC system, all waste transfer data would be held centrally within the EDOC system, reducing the need for the retention of multiple paper copies of documentation.

Online system more efficient, more accurate

The EDOC system would fill a major gap in knowledge within the waste industry, providing a platform for the production of a real-time, accurate, benchmarking baseline of waste together with in-depth reporting of information on the UK’s waste data such as disposal and treatment methods and waste streams. This would minimise the need for costly waste surveys that merely provide a snapshot of waste activity at any one point in time and instead provide a constant flow of data that would allow trend analysis and a whole host of new opportunities to the waste sector that currently do not exist.

The Reconomy Portal – leader in private sector waste reporting

As a key player in the recycling and waste management sector, Reconomy has recently launched the Reconomy Portal, a revolutionary online system providing real-time industry-leading waste information to its customers. The Reconomy Portal provides clients with a 24/7 web-based management system, enabling true visibility of waste costs, tonnage, segregation, and landfill diversion statistics. The system can be used to analyse individual projects and/or be utilised as a wider waste management tool that encompasses whole group activities providing key factual data on group statistics, most notably costly waste streams, problematic projects and group landfill diversion and recycling statistics.

With existing targets within the EU Landfill Directive to reduce construction and demolition waste to landfill by 70 per cent by 2020, Reconomy is currently leading the way in the housing and general construction sectors with a significant number of blue-chip clients that have already benefited from the Reconomy Portal and the detailed, customised information it can produce.

Compliance

Not only does the Reconomy Portal enable clients to achieve their CSR and Environmental objectives, it also ensures regulatory compliance giving complete peace of mind for customers by providing fully transparent access to Waste Transfer Notes, disposal locations and waste suppliers with all documentation available to view and download via the online portal.

The EDOC system will work in parallel with third party software systems and support many of the features of the Reconomy Portal. It will integrate seamlessly with such platforms including the use of a software interface for users to upload their waste data accurately. This will significantly reduce the administrative burden from the Waste Transfer Note process – one which causes a significant headache for the industry and which Reconomy removes for its clients via the use of the Reconomy Portal.

One of the major drivers for the EDOC project is to scale up to a national level, something that the Reconomy Portal achieves at a company level, by providing meaningful data on a wide range of different waste streams that can be analysed by both regulators, producers and all waste management companies alike. This data can be used to address trends within the industry to assess whether existing disposal methods are fit for purpose, provide opportunities for waste management companies and allow focused campaigns to reduce waste at source for problematic or high-volume waste streams.

Security of data

Data ownership, security and confidentiality are a particular area of concern for many stakeholders within the EDOC programme and significant time and detail has been spent to ensure any system developed would:

Protect commercial data from freedom of information acts
Protect against unauthorised access
Prevent disclosure of explicit or inferable commercial and personal details
Control data usage
Provide an audit trail for added and/or amended records
Ensure system availability, and
Provide user and developer support

EDOC is currently in its early stages with the recent completion of a successful pilot scheme, principally in the southeast region, with over a dozen companies taking part. The project commenced in January 2011 and will run through to completion in December 2014.

Key project milestones

Some of the key project milestones are as follows:

September 2011

Determination of stakeholders’ requirements for building and testing the national system

September 2012

National Electronic Duty of Care system fully designed and specified

September 2013

National Electronic Duty of Care system built and tested (evaluated by stakeholders) with functionality to map the following:

Quality of waste types produced over time
Quality of waste produced by location
Source, quality, treatment and disposal methods for each waste type

September 2014

Suite of demonstration materials, resources and training tools rolled out to encourage participation in the UK

The EU perspective

The underlying aim of the EDOC project is to demonstrate to EU member states how they can develop and introduce a nationally-integrated, internet-based system to monitor the collection, transportation, treatment and disposal of waste materials. This will ultimately allow the UK to work towards a zero waste culture and take real strides towards a pro-active approach to waste management rather than the retrospective outlook that is currently seen.

Brian Marshall, Reconomy’s Environment & Compliance Manager summed up by saying: “The current approach using waste transfer notes was devised as a solution in 1990 while the use of electronic systems were in an embryonic stage and the internet was still developing. The EDOC project moves the system up a generation, away from paper to one fit for use in the 21st century. Whilst the challenges the project has to overcome are significant, the opportunities are even greater.”

The EDOC programme has been made possible with the support of LIFE+ funding from the European Community.

ENDS

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NOTES TO EDITORS:

Logos: The EDOC and European Life Funding logos are attached. EDOC has requested that these be displayed with any publication of the EDOC programme.

Photo caption: Reconomy Portal: screen shot showing typical Reconomy customer's account (data presented in real time)

Further information and all media enquiries:

Ian Field or David Field, Adfield Group: T: 01952 752500 F: 01952 752510 E: david@adfield.co.uk