Guidance

Materials facilities: waste sampling and reporting

Check if you operate a materials facility. Understand your sampling, measuring, recording and reporting requirements.

• From: Environment Agency, Natural Resources Wales, Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs and Welsh Government
• Published: 11 December 2025

Applies to England and Wales

• Publication for Northern Ireland
• Publication for Scotland

Documents

Check if you operate a materials facility

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Notify your regulator about your materials facility

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Identify who supplies your materials facility

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Sample, measure and record the waste your materials facility processes

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Develop a suitable sampling methodology for your materials facility

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Report your materials facility data to your regulator

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Monitoring and enforcement of materials facilities

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Details

If you have a permitted waste facility in England and Wales, you need to check if this qualifies as a ‘materials facility’. If it does, you are required to:

• routinely sample and test the composition of the waste material passing through your facility
• report the results of sampling and testing to your environmental regulator

This guidance is to help you understand:

• if your facility qualifies as a materials facility
• the sampling, measuring, recording, and reporting requirements that apply to you if you operate a materials facility
• how to notify your regulator

A Welsh translation of this guidance will be added as soon as possible.

Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own regulations or codes of practice.

The sampling weights, frequencies, categories, recording and reporting requirements in this guidance are statutory requirements. To see the full statutory requirements you should check The Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2023

Published 11 December 2025