1 Introduction
14.83 Until 2006 agricultural waste was excluded from the regulations182 implementing the EC Waste Framework Directive.183 In Commission v UK,184 the European Court came to the conclusion that the UK had failed to fully implement the Directive.
The Waste Management (England and Wales) Regulations 2006 (‘the Agricultural Waste Regulations’)185 were introduced to rectify this omission and the waste-licensing regime was applied to all agricultural waste from 15 May 2006. Most farm waste will hitherto had been disposed of by burning burial or disposal onsite in farm dumps. Under the Agricultural Waste Regulations, any farmer disposing of waste had to possess either a waste management licence or operate under a registered exemption if s/he wished to bury burn or dispose of material that may damage the environment. It became illegal186 to add any new material to existing farm dumps, and no burning or deposit may be undertaken without a licence or exemption certificate. The extension of the waste regime to farm waste therefore represented a major addition to the regulatory burden on farmers. It also resulted in some regulatory complexity, as some farm-based activities required an IPPC permit (as outlined above) while others required a waste management licence.14.84 As noted above, the administration of pollution control was simplified in 2010 with the introduction of a unified and streamlined environmental permitting regime. This now applies to the licensing of farm waste operations, and has replaced the Agricultural Waste Regulations. The 2010 Environmental Permitting Regulations made several changes to the exemptions applicable to the handling of agricultural waste – some exemptions remain the same, some are similar but now have difference limit values and conditions, and there are a number of new exemptions. The principal applications of the waste regulations are to the storage and disposal of green waste (for example compost), waste silage wrappings, pesticide washings and waste sheep dip, waste oil and empty containers (for example pesticide and chemical containers). Organism aerials produced on a farm are not waste if used for agricultural benefit, such as slurry and manure – these are separately regulated under the precautionary regulations considered above,187 and under the Code of Good Agricultural Practice (see below).188