Guidance

Notify your regulator about your materials facility

Published 11 December 2025

Applies to England and Wales

• Publication for Northern Ireland
• Publication for Scotland

Check at the start of each 3-month period

If you operate a materials facility, you must assess how much waste material you are likely to receive during the next 12 months.

Do this at the start of each 3-month reporting period. These are:

• 1 January to 31 March
• 1 April to 30 June
• 1 July to 30 September
• 1 October to 31 December

As part of this assessment, you should consider the amount of waste material:

• received in the previous 12 months
• you expect to receive over the next 12 months

Keep these assessments with your other materials facility records for up to 7 years. This will support future assessments and demonstrate compliance with the requirement to assess.

When you must notify

You must tell your regulator if you have a materials facility that’s likely to receive 1,000 tonnes or more of waste material in the next 12 months.

Do this before the end of the reporting period in which you made the assessment.

In England

Notify the Environment Agency using the online form.

In Wales

Notify Natural Resources Wales using the online form.

What happens after you notify

Once you notify as a materials facility, the sampling, measuring, recording and reporting requirements of The Environmental Permitting Regulations, Schedule 9, Part 2, become a condition of your environmental permit.

You will remain notified until you decide to withdraw your notification. There is no need to renotify for each reporting period or on an annual basis.

If you receive less than 75 tonnes from any supplier

In England, check if you can follow the regulatory position statement (RPS) 327 on the requirement to notify as a materials facility if both of the following apply:

• your facility does not receive more than 75 tonnes from any individual supplier within a 3-month reporting period
• your facility does not sort waste material into specified output material

In England, RPS 327 may allow you to notify the Environment Agency about your status as a materials facility without having to use the online form.

Withdraw your materials facility notification if your circumstances change

You must assess whether you continue to meet the notification criteria before each reporting period.

If you think you will receive less than 1,000 tonnes of waste material in the next 12 months, you may withdraw your notification (also known as de-notifying).

You will then no longer be a notified materials facility, so would have no sampling, measuring, recording or reporting obligations.

However, you must continue to assess whether you meet the notification criteria before each reporting period and if you do, you must renotify the regulator.

England: withdraw your notification

Notify the Environment Agency using the online form.

Wales: withdraw your notification

Notify Natural Resources Wales using the online form.

Example: notifying and withdrawing notification

A materials facility (MF A) receives 800 tonnes a year of household recycling from 2 local waste collection authorities, WCA 1 and WCA 2.

MF A is not required to notify the regulator as a materials facility because it does not expect to receive 1,000 tonnes or more of waste material within any typical 12-month period.

A nearby materials facility (MF B) receives 2,000 tonnes of waste material a year from the same waste collection authorities. MF B is a notified materials facility.

Between April and September, MF B is being refurbished so has to send half of its incoming waste to MF A, approximately 250 tonnes each quarter.

MF A conducts the required self-assessment of their operations. They find that the quantity of waste material received over these reporting periods will be:

• Q2 (April to June) = 450 tonnes
• Q3 (July to September) = 450 tonnes
• Q4 (October to December) = 200 tonnes
• Q1 (January to March) = 200 tonnes

This means that the expected waste for each 12-month period will be:

• 12 months from April to April the following year = 1,300 tonnes (2 reporting periods at 450 tonnes + 2 reporting periods at 200 tonnes)
• 12 months from July to July the following year = 1,050 tonnes (1 reporting period at 450 tonnes + 3 reporting periods at 200 tonnes)
• 12 months from October to October the following year = 800 tonnes (4 reporting periods at 200 tonnes)

The quantity of qualifying waste material will decrease to normal levels (800 tonnes over a typical 12-month period) when the arrangement with MF B ends taking effect in Q4.

For the reporting period starting 1 April, MF A will need to notify the regulator as a materials facility. They will remain notified for the period starting 1 July so will not need to renotify.

When MF B resumes operation at the end of September, MF A stops receiving the additional input and conducts a self-assessment. MF A returns to expecting to receive 800 tonnes a year. For the reporting period starting 1 October, MF A can withdraw its notification as a materials facility.