Ruminating on Waste Rules and Angel De Maria

Having watched the mighty Arsenal bravely overcome the diving, moaning and blatant cheating of Manchester United the other night, I find myself ruminating on rules. Everyone has to live by the rules to a certain extent, but equally everyone bends them once in a while. You get a touch in the box and you go down, or so some people say. It is the professional thing to do.

No Angel De Maria, it isn’t. No Adnan Januzaj it isn’t clever, it marks you down as a cheat and people will hate you for it. But maybe for once football is not the best example. Most of us don’t bend the rules to gain a conspicuous unfair advantage, we do it because it is easier. Much easier. And this brings me to the subject of when is waste waste, and when is it not waste.

Fascinating huh? Even as a pleasant five minute read to help digest your tuna and mayo wrap, this blog is heading for a new low. But actually it is quite important. 

Take a look at this little link and you will see what I mean. Business Waste

If you cannot be bothered to read that scintillating government offering let me summarise. You need a license to move your waste. You need to know whether it is hazardous or not. If you get someone else to move it, you have a duty of care to make sure they deal with it legally. And you need waste transfer notes to record the whole process.

If you ignore all this and get caught you will be hung drawn and quartered. Your head will then be displayed on a spike outside the town hall to warn off other criminals. Or you will be fined. One or the other.

But when is it waste? EReco MD Jane Taylor and I discussed this on a train yesterday. I have man flu so some of the details are a little hazy but we came to the conclusion that our approach to life here in eReco land is belt and braces stuff. If a client asks us to remove something it is treated as waste because we do not, at that stage, know whether the kit has any life left in it. We have all the relevant licenses and we produce waste transfer notes. We ask what we are collecting and make sure we have listed all the different classifications, so the hazardous box is ticked off. No fines here, move along now, nothing to see.

Businesses in general do not like getting fined. It’s embarrassing and bosses tend to get grumpy because their boss gets grumpy. Now I am not sure if there are waste transfer patrols out there all ready to catch the unaware, but it is another thing to bear in mind. This really is not a subject to be casual about, right from the get go.

And hazardous waste includes laptops and monitors. Yes really. Every sales rep is technically lugging around a hazardous backpack. And as soon as you deem it redundant, you need a license to transport it.

I know. My head aches too. But this is why we are here. Stop worrying about it and call 01342-777550 and let me worry for you. I am good at it. Even whilst shouting at Angel De Maria and calling Louis Van Gaal names, I was reminding myself to check the paperwork for today’s collections.