Producer responsibility is about making sure businesses that manufacture, import and sell these products are responsible for their end of life environmental impact.

The regulations require businesses to:

• minimise waste arising from these products and promote their re-use
• ensure the waste products are treated and meet recovery and recycling targets for the waste materials
• design products by reducing material use and enhancing reusability and recyclability

Enforcing compliance: the regulators

The UK environmental regulators for producers, producer compliance schemes and treatment facilities are:

Environment Agency (England)

Natural Resources Wales (Wales)

Northern Ireland Environment Agency (Northern Ireland)

Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Scotland)

Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) for the ELV regulations

Regulatory Delivery (RD) for placed on the market regulations for WEEE and batteries, for distributors of WEEE and batteries, producers of industrial and automotive batteries and restrictions on heavy metals in vehicles.

Products removed from the ETPL before April 1 2016.

Introduction

In line with Part VI of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, no genetically modified (GM) seeds may be imported to and / or marketed in the UK for commercial purposes without authorisation.

Companies importing or producing conventional seed in the UK must ensure appropriate controls are in place to minimise the risk of adventitious GM presence (AGMP) in the seed.

Seed audit programme

The GM Inspectorate seed audit programme is designed to help companies comply with the rules on GMOs in seed and ensure the action they take is correctly documented. The audits include seed that is to be marketed for commercial production and seed to be used for trial purposes.

The audits are carried out on behalf of Defra and participation is voluntary.

Guidance

These documents provide further information on the audit programme and explain the information that seed producers, importers and suppliers should obtain when seeking to ensure freedom from unauthorised GM presence.

A GM Inspector will check this information during an audit.

The guidance is annually updated before the audit programme begins.

• 
  Guidance for seed companies
  (PDF, 367KB, 8 pages)
  

• 
  Detailed audit questionnaire
  (PDF, 118KB, 18 pages)
  

• 
  Basic audit data gathering template
  (MS Excel Spreadsheet, 528KB)
  

• 
  Gathering of basic data and detailed audit visits
  (PDF, 58.8KB, 1 page)
  

Audit summary reports

After a seed audit is completed, a detailed report is submitted to Defra showing the names of varieties imported and/or produced by the company and the assurances provided by the seed company for each seed lot or batch. A summary of these audit reports are published.

• 
  Recent GMI seed audit summary reports
  (PDF, 393KB, 28 pages)
  

Previous reports are available on the archived GM Inspectorate web pages.

Contact

For further information on the timing of seed audits or the seed audit programme, contact a member of the GM Inspectorate.

Contact the GMI if you have concerns or information about unauthorised GMOs that you believe may have been released in England or Wales.

Email: gm-inspec@apha.gsi.gov.uk

For information on GM services in Scotland, contact the SASA GM Inspectorate.

Further information

• Seed monitoring news
• GM test matrices
• EU Directive 2001/18/EC
• Archived GM Inspectorate website

This document explains the work that is happening to protect Beales Corner/Wribbenhall, Bewdley from flooding.

This release contains statistics on waste produced at a UK level. The topics covered in this publication are:

• Waste from Households – 2010-16. UK and country breakdown.
• BMW (Biodegradable Municipal Waste) to landfill – 2010-16. UK and country breakdown.
• WStatR (Waste Statistics Regulation) generation breakdown – 2012 & 2014. UK and England breakdown but not DAs.
• WStatR treatment breakdown – 2012 & 2014. UK and England breakdown but not DAs.
• WStatR infrastructure breakdown – 2014. UK and England breakdown but not DAs.
• C&I (Commercial and Industrial) waste generation – UK 2010, 2012 & 2014, England 2010 – 2016. UK and England breakdown but not DAs.
• C&D (Construction and Demolition) recovery – 2010-15. UK and England breakdown but not DAs.
• Packaging waste recycling and recovery – 2016. UK only.

UK figures are compiled to comply with reporting requirements against the EC Waste Framework Directive, EC Waste Statistics Regulation, EC Landfill Directive and EC Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive.

The datasets associated with this publication can be found here ENV23 – UK statistics on waste