Electronic waste tracking system project commences
June 16, 2009
The Environment Agency has commenced a pilot project aimed at enabling business and industry to track the collection, transfer and final destination of their waste electronically. The trial is seen as an important step in combating fly-tipping.
The Electronic Duty of Care trial is being run for three months as part of the Waste Crime Innovation Programme (WCIP). Six waste companies in the South-east England will participate in the trial, using mobile computer technology and a web-based tracking system to create and maintain electronic Waste Transfer Notes (WTNs). Two of them are large organisations, two are medium-sized and two are small enterprises.
Paul Keay, the Environment Agency's WCIP Project Manager, said that switching from paper to electronic WTNs ought to improve the quality of data collected, help waste producers to track their waste more easily and assist waste carriers in fulfilling their duty of care obligations.
The majority of waste carriers still complete and store paper WTNs but, if successful, the Electronic Duty of Care trial will mean that WTNs can be created and maintained electronically using web-hosted software and mobile computer handsets. This should simplify and speed up the process as well as making it more accurate.
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