H-licences? Waft and see
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DEMANDS for stronger action hazardous waste last week met from the Government.
The Earl of Avon recalled that the Select Committee on Hazardous Waste Disposal had recommended that all professional handlers of hazardous waste should have to be licensed by their waste disposal authority. The aim, he said, was to tighten up on the so-called cowboys who contravened the law, for example, by dumping waste on unlicensed sites.
These proposals, Lord Avon told the Lords, would represent a significant additional element of control and their introduction would mean an extra burden on public funds to administer, plus additional costs for the private sector to comply with them.
The Government was not announcing a conclusion on these recommendations that day but there would be consultation with all concerned before this was done, he said.
Dealing with fly-tipping, Lord • Avon said that penalties perhaps were not the whole answer. Already the worst offence carried the possibility of an unlimited fine and a period of imprisonment.
There were, he went on, three other strands to ensure that the disincentives were as strong as they could be.
The first was the nature of the offence. Was it arrestable? Was there a requirement to give names and addresses if asked? The Home Office was looking at this generally in its considei ations of the report on criminE procedure.
The second was police and th willingness of witnesses to la information. There was als scope for improvements her and he did not deny that it wa not always easy to achieve rE sults.
Lord Avon's third point wa the nature of a legitimate optior It had to be as simple and fle> ible as possible and while ecc nomics must not over-ride env ronmental considerations, cost had to be kept down by avoidin the burdensome requirement of the perfect system whic would simply encourage abuse.
A strengthening of the disir centive in all four areas wa what the Government would b aiming to achieve in respondin to the report, he said.
Lord Ashby noted that th National Association of Wast Disposal Contractors had sai there were hundreds of littl people they did not have in the organisation, while the Roa Haulage Association had sai that certain legislative locE authority arrangements wer clearly inadequate and consE quently there were considerabl hazards to the public.
That, said Lord Ashly, wa surely an irrefutable case ft licensing all handlers a hazardous waste outside th place of production.