The Act Commentary on Sections Part 5: Waste Section 45 Failure to furnish documentation: fixed penalty notices
144.Section 34 of the 1990 Act places a duty on any person who imports, produces, carries, keeps, treats or disposes of controlled waste or, as a broker, has control of such waste, to secure a written description of the waste whenever it is transferred. Section 34(5) provides for regulations to be made to require such documents to be retained and furnished.
145.Section 45 inserts a new section 34A into the 1990 Act. Section 34A empowers an enforcement authority to issue a fixed penalty notice to a person who has failed to comply with a requirement to furnish documents under regulations made under section 34(5), offering him the opportunity to discharge any liability to conviction for an offence by payment of a fixed penalty.
146.The amount of the fixed penalty is set at £300, which may be substituted by a different amount by an order made by the appropriate person. By section 34A(11), the enforcement authority may make provision for treating the fixed penalty as being paid if a lesser amount is paid during such shorter period as it may specify. By section 34A(12) the appropriate person may make regulations restricting the extent to which and circumstances in which an authority may provide for such reduced early payments. The new section 73A (section 52) below makes provision about the use of such receipts.