Paul Sanderson’s report:
At some point, Digital Waste Tracking will begin in the UK and overall this is something we support as an Association.
It will help ensure we know where waste is going and how much is produced. It will help prevent waste crime and support effective regulation. It will help businesses comply with their duty of care requirements, and vitally ensure material is maximised as part of the Circular Economy.
The ambition is for this to begin in April 2025, but there are a few things that may delay this. As we are finding across other areas such as the proposed changes from exemptions to permits, the roll out of Extended Producer Responsibility and more, the prospect of a General Election this year is causing uncertainty.
Indeed, we are getting close to the point where we don’t know if any of this will happen for sure. My instinct is that whoever wins the election will still roll out EPR etc, but when it comes to permits and Digital Waste Tracking, we don’t know for definite.
With Digital Waste Tracking, it will still need some Parliamentary time to put in place the required Statutory Instrument before being rolled out, which is why April 2025 could slip, especially if the election happens before November.
Additionally, there still seems like a lot of work to do. Some of our Members have joined the user acceptance testing phase and found the system bureaucratic and not working well. It is clear that there needs to be a lot of refinement to make it work, not least connecting it up to software systems like Traqa.
If you are interested in having a look, you can sign up here https://defragroup.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9QqfQNqEnI7ecDQ
My view is that Digital Waste Tracking will happen eventually whoever is in power and as an industry we need to be prepared. But there is still some way to go and don’t be surprised if it ends up being delayed.
