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Waste Management Inspections

Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 8 November 2012

Thursday, 8 November 2012

Questions (175)

Kevin Humphreys

Question:

175. Deputy Kevin Humphreys asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the number of inspections that were carried out by National Standards Authority of Ireland or certified third parties on waste management companies that charge customers by weight in 2010, 2011 and 2012; the number of verbal warnings or warning notices in the form of written instructions that were issued to such companies by the NSAI or certified third parties in those years; the waste management companies that were in breach of legislation in those years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [49099/12]

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Written answers

Waste disposal collectors are responsible under the Metrology Act 1996 and Regulations made under the Act, for ensuring that all their weighing instruments, including weighbridges and waste disposal trucks with weighing facilities, comply with the relevant requirements. Manufacturers are required to ensure that weighing equipment is verified upon first use, and thereafter, traders should ensure re-verification is carried out following repair or adjustment of parts requiring official seals to be broken.

Compliance requires measuring instruments to be of an approved design and each individual piece of equipment must measure correctly within legal tolerances and be appropriately secured with tamper-evident devices to prevent unauthorised access to its calibration settings. Knowingly failing or neglecting to ensure compliance may result in prosecution.

In keeping with the strategy of outsourcing verification services to the widest extent possible the first authorised Verifier for truck mounted waste weighing equipment was appointed earlier this year - the Authorised Verifier Scheme for the other types of weighing equipment used in this sector is well-established.

While verbal warnings were issued by the Legal Metrology Service (LMS) of the NSAI to have non-compliances rectified, these were followed up by later inspections to ensure rectification was carried out and therefore no written warnings were issued.

Due to the regulatory nature of LMS inspections, the Deputy will understand that compliance information on individual traders cannot be made publically available as it may be the subject of current or future enforcement actions. I can however, report that the LMS has not needed to take any prosecutions in this sector to date, and I welcome this development.

The Tables accompanying this reply provide details of the numbers of weighing instruments tested by the LMS in the waste disposal sector generally and for domestic waste weighers for the years 2010, 2011 and 2012.

All Categories of Weighing Instruments

Year

Inspections

Verifications

Warnings

2010

132

67

30

2011

142

70

27

2012 YTD

108

68

30

Residential Waste Weighers

Year

Inspections

Verifications

Warnings

2010

1

15

0

2011

6

30

1

2012 YTD

5

31

3

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