Environmental Impact Guidance
Waste management
"Will the proposal lead to a change in the financial costs or the environmental and health impacts of waste management?"
- It could do if it affects volume, content or management of waste. These pages help you understand if it will.
Waste policy is an important component of sustainable development. The UK has a number of national and legally binding European targets and policies. Waste is defined as : "...any substance or object...which the holder discards or intends or is required to discard."
Waste comes from many different sectors of the UK, not just households. The distribution of waste arisings (by volume) across the different sectors of the UK economy is shown in Figure 1:
Government policy recognises different options for managing waste and some options are preferable to others. The Waste Hierarchy sets out the preferences in descending order:
Page last modified: 16 November 2004
Page Published: 16 November 2004