Waste summary report, what it is and how to manage it

The entry into force of Law 7/2022 on waste and contaminated soils for a circular economy has led to a series of new developments that affect the professional activity of most of the actors in the industrial waste chain, both hazardous and non-hazardous (managers, agents, traders, transporters and producers).

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Obligations for waste managers and producers: chronological archiving and annual report

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If you are a waste management or production company, according to Law 07/2022 you must have a chronological file and the annual report before March 1 of the following year.

In addition, the Waste Law has extended this obligation to entities and companies that transport hazardous waste on a professional basis or act as dealers and agents of hazardous waste.

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Presentation of the annual report of hazardous waste producers

Since May 2023, there has been an Agreement of the waste coordination commission regarding the obligation for hazardous waste producers to submit an annual report.

This agreement establishes that waste producers comply with their obligation to submit the summary report of the information contained in the chronological file, when all the information on hazardous waste generated by the waste producing center (based on the identification documents) is included in the repository of shipments of the ministerial e-SIR platform. All hazardous waste producers with production centers in autonomous communities that use the MITECO procedure for inter-territorial and intra-territorial waste shipments are in this situation.

When the information on hazardous waste generation (through the identification documents) is distributed in different registries (for example, when inter-territorial shipments are carried out through the MITECO procedure and intra-territorial shipments are carried out through an autonomous community platform), the submission of the summary reports is considered to be complied with when the competent authorities of the autonomous communities where the producing center is located collect the information from the transfer documents of both systems, aggregate the information in summary form, analyze and check the information, and subsequently incorporate it into e-SIR.

In the following video presented by Maite Señoráns, Operations Technician at TEIMAS, you will see in a simplified way:

• How to specifically address compliance with the requirements for the submission of annual waste reports and declarations in different autonomous communities such as the Basque Country, La Rioja, Navarra, Andalusia and Catalonia, among others.
• The obligations of the different types of hazardous waste producers, the deadlines established for the submission of documents, and the specific procedures to be followed in each autonomous community.
• How TEIMAS Zero helps you in the preparation of such annual reports and statements.

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Information obligations under the Waste Law: electronic file

According to this Law, registered natural or legal persons and initial producers that generate more than 10 tonnes of non-hazardous waste per year will have an electronic file where the following information will be collected, in chronological order:

• The quantity, nature and origin of the waste generated.
• The quantity of products, materials or substances, and wastes resulting from preparation for reuse, recycling, other recovery operations and disposal operations.
• The destination, frequency of collection, means of transport and the intended method of treatment of the resulting waste, as well as the destination of products, materials and substances.

Sending of summary reports of the chronological file before 1 March

In accordance with article 65 of Law 07/2022, before March 1 of the subsequent year for which the data have been collected, natural or legal persons carrying out professional waste collection and treatment operations and producers of hazardous waste shall send a summary report of the information contained in the chronological file to the autonomous community in which the facility is located. In the case of waste under local jurisdiction, it will also be sent to the local authorities.

Managers without a facility or with mobile facilities shall submit the report to all the communities in which they have submitted communications to carry out the treatment.

In addition, transporters, dealers and agents of hazardous waste must also submit a report to the community in which they have submitted the notification.

Annual report: what data are requested by the Autonomous Communities?

There are several reasons that can make the preparation of annual reports difficult, as well as causing a large administrative burden:

• the company has waste data that are difficult to identify (e.g. hazardous waste data, non-hazardous waste data, total data per NIMA, data per permit...);
• the company has several shipment documents containing a large amount of waste data;
• the report is carried out by a third party who does not have access to all waste data;
• there is no state-wide template. This means that you will have to adapt the submission of data to the requirements of the different forms of each autonomous community, with different formats;
• waste data are in different plants or repositories (programs, spreadsheets, text documents).

Data requested in the WEEE managers' reports

The annual report on the management of the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) facilities is presented in the first three months of the year and must contain very detailed information on shipments: data on the EEE Category, Fraction, treated WEEE, WEEE sent to another manager, details of the Inputs, details of the outputs - indicating the different origins - as shown, for example, in this application model of the Xunta de Galicia (Galician Regional Government):

Tools for compiling chronological archives and annual reports

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With the help of spreadsheets such as Excel, you can create formulas and templates that will help you partially automate the management of chronological archives and annual summary reports. You can also share these spreadsheets with other employees or clients via Dropbox, weTransfer or similar file hosting services.

Compared to Excel, using Google Sheets spreadsheets allows you to edit and collaborate with your team members directly. But while you may find this tool useful, there are other specific options that will save you a lot of work.

Among the most specialized are TEIMAS software solutions, which do not require installation.

Whether you are a waste manager, agent, dealer, transporter or producer, this type of tool will help you to prepare the chronological file and the annual report in accordance with Law 7/2022 because it generates editable reports automatically from the waste data that you have previously registered.

In case you need an annual presentation of the waste summary report, they help you to generate this document (which collects the data of waste managed or produced by each waste management center in the period of one year).