Under the Landfill Regulations introduced in 2002 in England and Wales and 2003 in Scotland, a new requirement was imposed on all waste disposed of in landfill from 30 October 2007.

Under the pre-treatment requirements, no landfill site can accept waste unless it has been pre-treated.

Waste will be considered to be pre-treated if it has undergone a physical, thermal or biological process, including sorting that changes the characteristics of the waste. Pre-treating should reduce the mass of the waste, reduce its hazardous nature, facilitate its handling, or enhance its recovery.

The requirement is part of a package of measures in the Landfill Directive designed to:

The Directive challenges producers to think about routes for disposal of their waste and this should boost recovery and recycling.

The pre-treatment requirement applies to any business that produces or treats waste before it goes to landfill.

For general waste, this requirements means that a proportion of each waste stream must be separated out for recycling or it must go through a sorting facility.

If the waste stream is already a separate collection of a material sent for recycling then your waste satisfies the pre-treatment requirement.