SR2008No5 Household, commercial and industrial waste transfer station with asbestos storage

There are three sets of standard rules for sites accepting less than 75,000 tonnes of waste per annum.

We have revised the standard rules for this activity so there is now only one tonnage band.

The inputs are limited to non-hazardous and inert wastes and do not include:

  • dusts
  • powders
  • liquids and sludges.

The only hazardous waste permitted is asbestos (subject to a 10 tonnes/day limit). Wastes can be:

  • bulked up for disposal or recovery elsewhere, and
  • manually sorted or separated for recovery but this permit does not allow any waste treatment activities such as screening and crushing.

The rules do not allow the storage of more than 50 tonnes of whole or shredded waste vehicle tyres.

Applying for a standard permit

You can apply for a standard permit if you can comply with the standard rules and meet the following risk criteria:

  • the quantity of waste that can be accepted onto the site is less than 75,000 tonnes per annum
  • with the exception of specified wastes all bulking, transfer, sorting or separating of non-hazardous waste must be carried out inside a building
  • non-hazardous wastes must be stored on impermeable surface with sealed drainage
  • specified wastes must be stored on hard standing or on impermeable surface with sealed drainage
  • the only discharges to controlled waters are surface water from the roofs of buildings and from areas of the site not used for the storage of wastes
  • the activities are not carried out within 200 metres of a European site, Ramsar site or Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). You can find out this information by calling us on 0370 8506506, or by visiting either of the websites below (depending on whether your site is in England or Wales):


Applying for a bespoke permit

If you cannot comply with any of the standard rules, or meet any one of the criteria listed above, then you must apply for a bespoke permit. Your application must include additional information about the criteria that you cannot meet and how you intend to control the associated risks:

Cost of standard permits

The cost of standard permits can be found in our charging scheme. Please visit our Environmental Permitting (EP) charges page.

Standard rules

You can find the standard rules sets, generic risk assessment, guidance and application form by using the links below.

Look at the standard rules that you want to apply for and check that:

  • the permitted activities include all the ones that you want to carry out
  • the permitted waste types include all the wastes that you want to accept onto the site
  • the permitted waste quantity is sufficient
  • you can comply with all the other rules. We have written guidance to help you understand how to comply with the rules. We still publish three sets of standard rules for this activity but you can only apply for SR2008No5_75kte.

Download and read the standard rules:

We carried out a risk assessment to develop the risk criteria for these activities to produce the standard rules. We have provided it for your information, but you do not need to agree with it or send us a signed copy.

Record of changes to standard rules and generic risk assessment

A record of the changes to the standard rules and generic risk assessment since they were first published is available from the link below. The record of change was last updated in April 2010. If you operate under this set of standard rules, you must comply with the current version that is linked to this web page:

Guidance on how to comply with your standard permit

Guidance is provided in a document called 'How to Comply with your Environmental Permit'. This is available to download from our Environmental Permitting guidance page:

Application form and explanatory notes

The Environmental Permitting Regulations application form is available from the link below.