The Environment Agency has extended until 30 September 2019 its regulatory position statement (RPS) 207 on classifying waste wood from mixed waste wood sources.

This regulatory position statement (RPS) applies to business who produce, transport, keep, process, control, use or dispose of waste wood. It allows treated or mixed waste wood (including chipped waste wood and wood fines), which could be classified as hazardous or non-hazardous and has not been assessed and classified in line with the Hazardous Waste Technical Guidance to continue to be classified as non-hazardous.

For the purposes of the RPS, treated waste wood is any waste wood, processed wood or wood fuel that contains, in any quantity, wood that’s been preserved, varnished, coated, painted or exposed to chemicals. If an operator follows the conditions in this RPS, it does not need to apply a hazardous waste classification for treated or mixed waste wood, provided it meets certain conditions.

The waste wood must be destined for an Industrial Emissions Directive (IED) Chapter IV compliant permitted incinerator or co-incinerator or for the manufacture of board. This includes the waste wood being stored or pre-treated for these purposes.

If  an operator is to use treated or mixed waste wood for any other purpose, it must assess and classify it in line with the Hazardous Waste Technical Guidance before it is moved from the premises where it is produced or held, and it must demonstrate that any processed waste derived from it (including chipped wood, wood fuel and wood fines) is derived solely from waste wood inputs that have been assessed and classified in line with the Hazardous Waste Technical Guidance.

This RPS does not apply to waste wood that is known and is classified as hazardous, such as railway sleepers, telegraph poles, and wood treated with creosote. Operators must segregate hazardous waste wood and consign it as hazardous.

RPS 207 had been due to be withdrawn on 1 November 2018 as the EA anticipated that the waste wood industry would have developed and implemented a code of practice to meet the hazardous waste regime requirements to assess and classify waste wood. The extension gives the wood industry more time to complete this.