Meet your environmental duties on a construction site

Construction work in England touches four environmental regimes: waste, pollution of water and land, noise, and dust and mud. The Environment Agency enforces the first two. Your local council enforces the others. The duties apply whatever the size of the project.

Handle your site waste lawfully

The Site Waste Management Plans Regulations 2008 were revoked on 1 December 2013, so a plan is no longer a legal requirement in England. A planning condition, a client or a main contractor can still require one.

Use a registered carrier, or register yourself

Before a load leaves site, check that the carrier is on the Environment Agency's public register and record its registration number.

Regulations made on 22 July 2026 bring waste carriers, brokers and dealers in England into environmental permitting, replacing registration, from July 2027.

Complete a transfer note for each load

Each non-hazardous load needs a waste transfer note, or a document with the same information such as an invoice. Both you and the business taking the waste sign it and keep a copy for 2 years. For regular loads of the same waste, with the same carrier and the same holder, a season ticket covers transfers for up to 12 months.

Treat asbestos and other hazardous waste separately

Asbestos, solvents, oils, batteries and many chemicals are hazardous waste. Each load needs a hazardous waste consignment note instead of a transfer note. You keep your copies for 3 years at the premises that produced the waste. The carrier keeps its records for 1 year.

Check whether you need a permit or an exemption

Storing, treating or using waste on site without authority is an offence. Crushing demolition rubble, screening soil or using waste to build a bund, track or drainage work are examples. You have 4 options: a regulatory position statement, a registered exemption, a standard rules permit or a bespoke permit. A mobile plant permit covers treatment machinery that moves between sites.

The U1 exemption lets you use suitable waste in construction work, but not waste contaminated with plastic, asbestos fragments or oils. You cannot store the waste for more than 12 months before use. An exemption lasts 3 years and most carry a registration charge.

If your permit lets you receive controlled waste, you must report each load you receive to the Environment Agency through the digital waste tracking service from 1 October 2026. Submit the record within 2 working days of receipt.

Keep pollution out of water and land

You must not cause or knowingly permit a polluting discharge to surface water or groundwater without an environmental permit. Concrete slurry and washings, silt, cement and fuel can all pollute. A conviction can bring an unlimited fine, up to 5 years in prison, or both.

Only clean water should go to a surface water drain or soakaway. Contaminated water must go to a foul sewer with your water company's permission, be recycled on site or be removed by a registered waste carrier. Plan where your drains lead before work starts. Call the Environment Agency incident hotline immediately if polluting material enters or could enter a watercourse or the ground.

Work in, under, over or near a main river, or on or near a flood defence, may need a flood risk activity permit. Taking water from a surface or underground source, such as when dewatering an excavation, may need a water resources licence.

Control noise

Control dust and mud

Dust from industrial, trade or business premises that is prejudicial to health or a nuisance is also a statutory nuisance, enforced by the council through an abatement notice. A planning condition often requires a dust management plan, particularly for larger sites and sites in or near an air quality management area. A permitted waste operation can also have to submit one under its permit.

Depositing mud or other material on a highway so that it interrupts the use of the road is an offence under section 148 of the Highways Act 1980. The highway authority can serve a notice requiring you to remove it, and can apply to a magistrates' court for an order if you do not.