Waste responsibilities

Living and working in a clean and pleasant place can make us feel better about ourselves and the area in which we live. Successfully tackling litter, fly tipping, graffiti and other local environmental problems can have benefits for not only your business, by improving the quality of your surrounding area and the wellbeing of your employees, but can attract investment, leading to economic regeneration.

All businesses have certain responsibilities when it comes to their local environment. This covers problems including litter, graffiti, fly tipping and waste.

Litter

Any litter related to your business activities must be regularly cleared from nearby land. Consistent problems of this nature can led to the council issuing a Community Protection Notice.

Graffiti

While the council is responsible for cleaning graffiti from public property, if the graffiti occurs on privately owned buildings or property, such as bus shelters or telephone boxes, it is the responsibility of the company that owns these to clean it up.

Fly-tipping

Your business has a responsibility to dispose of its waste properly. This means either having the waste collected by a registered waste carrier or taking your own waste to a licensed disposal site.

You also have a duty to clear waste fly-tipped on your land.

Waste

All businesses produce waste, whether this is a few sheets of scrap paper to several skip loads a week. When you create waste, you have a duty of care to ensure the waste is kept safe, stored appropriately and disposed of properly.

The duty of care applies to all businesses, regardless of size. Further information on your duty of care can be found on the GOV.UK website.

The council no longer provides a commercial waste service. Businesses can contact any licensed waste service provider to set up a collection contract.

Duty of care dos and don'ts