Treatment of hazardous waste is essential for public health and a clean environment. Only relatively small amounts of hazardous waste are currently sent for recycling and recovery and new facilities are needed to allow more to be recycled and recovered to properly implement the waste hierarchy.
The draft National Policy Statement for Hazardous Waste is one of a series being drawn up under the Planning Act 2008. The objective of the Act is to provide a more streamlined system for obtaining development consent for new major infrastructure and will provide a greater degree of certainty to potential developers.
The draft National Policy Statement builds on the Strategy for Hazardous Waste Management in England issued by Defra in 2010. It establishes criteria to be used by applicants in applying for development consent and by decision makers in considering these applications.
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The consultation will last for 14 weeks, closing on 20 October 2011. Further information can be found here: www.defra.gov.uk/consult/2011/07/14/hazardous-waste/.