Legal & liability concerns
One of the foundations of the Warp it resource redistribution system is the safe and legal transfer of resources within and outside of any organisation.
Organisations can be reluctant to transfer resources due to uncertainties around waste legislation, “Duty of Care” and legal liabilities.
There are specific actions that need to take place to make sure that equipment and/or resources are reused legally and safely.
Internal trades
When internal staff sign up to the system the agree to abide by the rules.
We provide template rules to make sure trades are safe and effective. The admin can also edit these rules for more specific requirements.
The internal trade agreement is found in the admin area under customise messages. Link to the standard rules.
Trades outside of the organisation
When 3rd parties trade items , the claimant agrees to Terms and Conditions of use.
This is called the horizontal agreement and is between an organisation donating an item and an organisation claiming an item.
This agreement deals with the transfer of ownership of any items.
See how this look on the system below
The horizontal agreement is found in the admin area under customise messages. If you are already part of Warp It you can see the content when you click here [link to the specific area] . If you have not signed up to Warp It yet please email info@warp-it.co.uk for a copy.
The template T&Cs are provided by WasteAction Resource Efficiency Ltd.
This legal document is customisable. The client organisation should satisfy themselves with the T&Cs for use for their organisation's portal.
If there are any additional clauses required- they can be added in the “customise messages” section of the admin landing page.
The new T&Cs then apply the donation assets from the primary organisation’s portal- and anybody engaging with their portal will be asked to abide by their T&Cs
Specific equipment
Some items can cause more concern than others- such as electrical items;
If client organisations are concerned about particular items being transferred the actual category of item can be "switched off" on the system preventing any transfer.
If electrical are enabled and anyone tries to upload electrical they are prompted to detail the Electrical Safety Test status.
The same goes for other assets. For example if a member adds an item from a lab, the system will ask for the member to specify that the item is disinfected.
If anyone claims an electrical item- as part of the claim they agree to get it Electrical Safety tested before using if it is out of date.
Waste legislation and Duty of Care
The old question of "what is a waste?". Waste is hard to define, but is generally anything that you discard,
intend to discard or are required to discard. However if the resource is in useable condition and available for reuse-
if an item is described accurately- and the user intends to use it for it's intended purpose without changing its form in anyway- it does not become a waste.
Article 3 of the 2008 European Waste Framework Directive (2008/98/EC)
distinguishes reuse and preparation for reuse and provides the following definitions of reuse and preparation for reuse.
- ‘re-use‘ means any operation by which products or components that are not waste are used again for the same purpose for which they were conceived (i.e. dealing with waste prevention);
- ‘preparing for re-use‘ means checking, cleaning or repairing recovery operations, by which products or components of products that have become waste are prepared so that they can be re-used without any other pre-processing.
Draft DEFRA Guidance (2010) clarifies this further, by stating that it is the intention that is important.
Where ―the substance or object is being transferred with the intention that it should continue to be used for its original purpose‖,
it is not waste, even if it needs some cleaning, checking or repair.
Where the item has been discarded as waste (e.g. at a Civic Amenity (CA) Site),
it will remain waste until they have been subject to a recovery operation.
This means that preparation for reuse only applies to items which have been discarded.
Warp it items are described as being in excellent good or fair condition. If an item is described as poor,
requires refurbishment or requires recycling- the item is passed to the waste manager or waste contractor for repair refurbishment or further processing.