Control of Pollution (Amendment) Act 1989
Control of Pollution (Amendment) Act 1989
1989 CHAPTER 14
An Act to provide for the registration of carriers of controlled waste and to make further provision with respect to the powers exercisable in relation to vehicles shown to have been used for illegal waste disposal.
[6th July 1989]
Be it enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—
1 Offence of transporting controlled waste withoutregistering.
(1) Subject to the following provisions of this section, it shall be an offence for any person who is not a registered carrier of controlled waste, in the course of any business of his or otherwise with a view to profit, to transport any controlled waste to or from any place in Great Britain.
(2) A person shall not be guilty of an offence under this section in respect of—
(a) the transport of controlled waste within the same premises between different places in those premises;
(b) the transport to a place in Great Britain of controlled waste which has been brought from a country or territory outside Great Britain and is not landed in Great Britain until it arrives at that place;
(c) the transport by air or sea of controlled waste from a place in Great Britain to a place outside Great Britain.
(3) The Secretary of State may by regulations provide that a person shall not be required for the purposes of this section to be a registered carrier of controlled waste if—
(a) he is a prescribed person or a person of such a description as may be prescribed; or
(b) without prejudice to paragraph (a) above, he is a person in relation to whom the prescribed requirements under the law of any other member State are satisfied.
(4) In proceedings against any person for an offence under this section in respect of the transport of any controlled waste it shall be a defence for that person to show—
(a) that the waste was transported in an emergency of which notice was given, as soon as practicable after it occurred, to the disposal authority in whose area the emergency occurred;
(b) that he neither knew nor had reasonable grounds for suspecting that what was being transported was controlled waste and took all such steps as it was reasonable to take for ascertaining whether it was such waste; or
(c) that he acted under instructions from his employer.
(5) A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale.
(6) In this section ‘emergency’, in relation to the transport of any controlled waste, means any circumstances in which, in order to avoid, remove or reduce any serious danger to the public or serious risk of damage to the environment, it is necessary for the waste to be transported from one place to another without the use of a registered carrier of such waste.
2 Registration of carriers.
(1) Subject to section 3 below, the Secretary of State may by regulations make provision for the registration of persons with disposal authorities as carriers of controlled waste and, for that purpose, for the establishment and maintenance by such authorities, in accordance with the regulations, of such registers as may be prescribed.
(2) Regulations under this section may—
(a) make provision with respect to applications for registration;
(b) impose requirements with respect to the manner in which disposal authorities maintain registers of carriers of controlled waste;
(c) provide for the issue of a certificate of registration free of charge to a registered carrier of controlled waste both on his registration and on the making of any alteration of any entry relating to him in a register of such carriers;
(d) provide for such a certificate to be in such form and to contain such information as may be prescribed;
(e) provide that the provision by a disposal authority to a registered carrier of such copies of a certificate of registration as are provided in addition to the certificate provided free of charge in pursuance of provision made by virtue of paragraph (c) above is to be made subject to the payment of a charge imposed under the regulations.
(3) Provision contained in any regulations under this section by virtue of subsection (2)(a) above may, in particular, include provision which—
(a) prescribes the manner of determining the disposal authority to which an application is to be made;
(b) prescribes the form on which and other manner in which an application is to be made;
(c) prescribes the period within which an application for the renewal of any registration which is due to expire is to be made;
(d) imposes requirements with respect to the information which is to be provided by an applicant to the authority to which his application is made;
(e) requires disposal authorities to impose charges in respect of their consideration of applications.
(4) Provision contained in any regulations under this section by virtue of subsection (2)(b) above may, in particular, include provision—
(a) specifying or describing the information to be incorporated in any register maintained by a disposal authority in pursuance of any such regulations;
(b) requiring a registered carrier of controlled waste to notify a disposal authority which maintains such a register of any change of circumstances affecting information contained in the entry relating to that carrier in that register;
(c) requiring a disposal authority, to such extent and in such manner as may be prescribed, to make the contents of any such register available for public inspection free of charge; and
(d) requiring such an authority, on payment of such charges as may be imposed under the regulations, to provide such copies of the contents of any such register to any person applying for a copy as may be prescribed.
(5) Subsections (2) to (4) above are without prejudice to the generality of subsection (1) above.
3 Restrictions on power under section 2.
(1) Nothing in any regulations under section 2 above shall authorise a disposal authority to refuse an application for registration except where—
(a) there has, in relation to that application, been a contravention of the requirements of any regulations made by virtue of subsection (2)(a) of that section; or
(b) the applicant or another relevant person has been convicted of a prescribed offence and, in the opinion of the authority, it is undesirable for the applicant to be authorised to transport controlled waste.
(2) Nothing in any regulations under section 2 above shall authorise any disposal authority to revoke any person's registration as a carrier of controlled waste except where—
(a) that person or another relevant person has been convicted of a prescribed offence; and
(b) in the opinion of the authority, it is undesirable for the registered carrier to continue to be authorised to transport controlled waste;
but registration in accordance with any regulations under that section shall cease to have effect after such period as may be prescribed or if the registered carrier gives written notice requiring the removal of his name from the register.
(3) Regulations under section 2 above may require every registration in respect of a business which is or is to be carried on by a partnership to be a registration of all the partners and to cease to have effect if any of the partners ceases to be registered or if any person who is not registered becomes a partner.
(4) Nothing in any regulations under section 2 above shall have the effect of bringing the revocation of any person's registration as a carrier of controlled waste into force except—
(a) after the end of such period as may be prescribed for appealing against the revocation under section 4 below; or
(b) where that person has indicated, within that period, that he does not intend to make or continue with an appeal.
(5) In relation to any applicant for registration or registered carrier, another relevant person shall be treated for the purposes of any provision made by virtue of subsection (1) or (2) above as having been convicted of a prescribed offence if—
(a) any person has been convicted of a prescribed offence committed by him in the course of his employment by the applicant or registered carrier or in the course of the carrying on of any business by a partnership one of the members of which was the applicant or registered carrier;
(b) a body corporate has been convicted of a prescribed offence committed at a time when the applicant or registered carrier was a director, manager, secretary or other similar officer of that body corporate; or
(c) where the applicant or registered carrier is a body corporate, a person who is a director, manager, secretary or other...
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