Whitehall farce set to continue over controls on scrap industry

Proposals to exempt most of the scrap metal and vehicle dismantling industry from waste management licensing were issued by the Department of the Environment (DoE) on 8 November.¹ Waste regulators were astonished by the scale of the proposed exemptions - but agree with the industry that the DoE has failed to come up with workable transitional arrangements for scrap operations which already have licences. Meanwhile, the industry, which has won numerous postponements in the application of waste legislation since 1992, is urging a further delay in the introduction of even the less stringent controls which will apply to activities exempted from licensing.