Dispose of your waste
Waste disposal best practice
Best practice in waste disposal is to apply the waste management hierarchy, which ensures that the economic and environmental benefits of each waste option are maximised.
It encourages you to consider a range of options before disposal, including:
- prevention
- preparing for reuse
- recycling
- other recovery
- only then, disposal
Find out more information about the waste hierarchy (PDF, 306K).
How to dispose of waste correctly
You have a number of obligations when dealing with waste disposal - this is known as your duty of care for waste.
In general terms you must:
- identify your source and type of waste accurately
- complete waste disposal documentation such as transfer, duty of care notes or hazardous waste consignment notes
- find a registered carrier to transport your waste
- store the waste safely and securely until it is removed
- dispose of waste only at facilities that are licensed to accept that type of material
The requirements for disposing of hazardous waste are more complicated, and it's important to remember that this type of waste can't be disposed of at landfill in Northern Ireland.
Some district councils will collect small amounts of commercial and industrial waste from small businesses, or allow you to use their civic amenity sites. There may be a charge for such services - you can search for local council contact details in Northern Ireland.
Disposal of waste in landfill should be the last option for your business waste, after identifying opportunities for reusing wasted resources from your business and recycling your business waste.
Get a free sustainability report
All Northern Ireland businesses with an annual energy and resource spend of more than £30k can get a free assessment of their environmental performance across areas such as raw materials, energy, carbon, packaging, biodiversity and waste - find out more about Invest NI Sustainability Reports.