The Environment Act 2021 became law on 9 November 2021, two years after first being presented to Parliament. It provides a legal framework for governance and specific improvement of the environment, as well as a roadmap for further detailed secondary legislation. By October 2022, we should see draft legislation in which the Secretary of State sets long-term targets for resource efficiency and waste reduction. A volume of further secondary legislation will follow, although the government has given minimal indication of anticipated timings.

In this article for Circular magazine, Dentons trainee Amy Gault summarises the legal framework of the Environment Act and what businesses need to know, including new obligations on waste producers, new enforcement powers for authorities and powers to introduce a deposit return scheme and national waste tracking system, amongst others. It will be important for the waste industry to anticipate the changes arising from the Environment Act, both to future-proof their businesses as necessary now and to ensure compliance.

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Reproduced by kind permission of CIWM and CIWM Enterprises Ltd and originally featured in Circular, January/February 2022. Visit here for the latest industry news and opinions and to sample an issue of Circular.