Environment Agency
The EA’s overall objective is to provide a better environment for people and wildlife, which will be delivered though action on five themes:
- Act to reduce climate change and its consequences;
- Protect and improve air, land and water quality;
- Put people and communities at the heart of what we do;
- Work with businesses and the public sector to use resources wisely; and
- Be the best we can.
The Environment agency has a broad ranging remit to protect and improve the quality of the environment. This involves regulating industrial activities that pose a risk to land, water and air but also having a direct involvement in protecting the environment through the development of flood defences, mitigating climate change and being an influential advisor to government to help them address wider sustainability issues, as well as supporting businesses to be greener.
Within the waste industry Environment Agency is recognised mainly as a regulator, which controls the activities of waste operations through setting standards and emission controls. The Agency has a role in ensuring a level playing field by monitoring, inspecting and enforcing management activities in relation to the risk that they pose, and where feasible, allowing low risk activities to be relieved of the regulation burden through exemptions. The Environment Agency, with Local Authorities, also has responsibility for ensuring illegal activities such as fly-tipping are reduced.
The agency aids the industry in the development markets for waste derived products by supporting industry in determining when materials stop being waste through the development of protocols.
