Environmental guidance for your business in Northern Ireland & Scotland
Animal by-products are entire animal bodies, parts of animals or products of animal origin that are not intended for human consumption. These include:
Meat, fish and other material from animals become animal by-products when the material is no longer intended for human consumption. This is the case even if the material is still edible.
Animal by-product controls do not generally apply to:
Catering waste is waste food from:
If animal by-product controls do not apply to your waste, you must comply with your duty of care for dealing with waste.
A food business is any business that carries out activities related to the processing, distribution, preparation or sale of food. Examples include:
If you are a food business then you must be prepared to present food waste for separate collection:
You are a large producer if you regularly produce more than 50kg of food waste per week.
You are a small producer if you regularly produce between 5kg and 50kg of food waste per week.
(A 120 litre bin holds approximately 60kg of food waste)
Exempt businesses
Your businesses are exempt from the regulations if:
(5kg is roughly equivalent to a full domestic kitchen caddy)
There is a prohibition on the landfilling of separately collected food waste from 1 April 2015. The regulations also introduce a duty on businesses to ensure food waste is not deposited in a lateral drain or sewer from 1 April 2017.
DAERA: Regulatory position statement – Food Waste Guidance
If you are a food business you must be prepared to present food waste for separate collection.
Your food businesses are exempt from the regulations only if:
You can find out if your business is located in a rural area by searching the list of postcodes published by the Scottish Government.
Scottish Government: Defining rural and non-rural areas to support zero waste policies
The use of macerators to dispose of food waste in the sewer system is now banned, except for domestic premises and food producers in rural areas.
Duty of care – your waste responsibilities
DAERA: Animal by-products guidance (Northern Ireland)
DAERA: Regulatory position statement – Food Waste Guidance
Scottish Government: Animal by-products
What are animal by-products?
Categories of animal by-products
Disposing of animal by-products
Disposing of food waste and catering waste
Transporting animal by-products
Groundwater in Northern Ireland, DAERA have produced a leaflet to raise awareness about this untapped resource
EU Exit, EU Exit useful information
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