CSCS Environmental Awareness & Waste Questions
Pollution prevention, waste segregation and protected species.
Environmental Awareness & Waste — practice questions (untimed, instant feedback)
- 9 questions · pass mark 90%
- Untimed practice — you see the correct answer immediately after each question.
- Some questions need more than one answer — these are clearly marked.
All 9 Environmental Awareness & Waste questions and answers
These are the same 9 questions as the practice test above, written out with the correct answer and the reasoning behind it. Read them through when you want to revise rather than test yourself.
1. Do you have any responsibility for cutting down the amount of waste created?
Answer: Yes — everyone on site shares this responsibility
- A) No — that is down to site management
- B) Only during the end-of-project clean-up
- C) Only if your induction told you to
- D) Yes — everyone on site shares this responsibility (correct answer)
Why: Reducing waste is everyone's responsibility, not just management's.
2. Which of these is NOT good practice on site?
Answer: Burning waste on site
- A) Burning waste on site (correct answer)
- B) Refuelling carefully to prevent spills
- C) Storing materials safely
- D) Turning off plant and equipment when it is idle
Why: Burning waste causes pollution and is not acceptable practice.
3. Which two of the following are classed as hazardous waste? (Choose two)
Answers: Fluorescent tubes and Used spill-kit pads soaked in oil
- A) Broken tiles or bricks
- B) Fluorescent tubes (correct answer)
- C) Glass
- D) Polythene and shrink-wrap
- E) Used spill-kit pads soaked in oil (correct answer)
Why: Fluorescent tubes and oil-soaked spill pads are hazardous waste; the others are inert or general waste.
4. There is an oil or diesel spill on site. What should you do?
Answer: Stop work, contain the spill, tell your supervisor and then clean up
- A) Phone the environment department at once
- B) Ignore it — such spills do no lasting harm
- C) Stop work, contain the spill, tell your supervisor and then clean up (correct answer)
- D) Clean it up with a spill kit by the end of the day
Why: Stop, contain the spill, report it, then clean up — prompt action limits the pollution.
5. Which of these can typically be recycled on site?
Answer: Concrete
- A) Asbestos
- B) Paint
- C) Concrete (correct answer)
- D) Solvents
Why: Crushed concrete is commonly recycled as aggregate or fill.
6. What is the most effective way to cut waste on site?
Answer: Reuse materials and off-cuts where possible
- A) Only buy recyclable materials
- B) Reuse materials and off-cuts where possible (correct answer)
- C) Send everything to landfill
- D) Avoid sorting waste
Why: Reusing materials and off-cuts prevents waste at source.
7. What does the waste hierarchy prioritise?
Answer: Prevention, reuse and recycling before disposal
- A) Landfill
- B) Recycling above all else
- C) Prevention, reuse and recycling before disposal (correct answer)
- D) Incineration as safest
Why: The waste hierarchy puts prevention first, then reuse and recycling, then disposal last.
8. Which document explains how environmental impacts will be managed on a project?
Answer: The Environmental Management Plan
- A) The drawings
- B) The Environmental Management Plan (correct answer)
- C) The site safety plan
- D) The budget
Why: The Environmental Management Plan sets out how impacts are controlled.
9. Why segregate waste on site?
Answer: To improve recycling and reduce contamination
- A) To raise landfill tax
- B) To discourage recycling
- C) To improve recycling and reduce contamination (correct answer)
- D) To make more work
Why: Separating waste streams boosts recycling and cuts contamination.
What this topic covers in the CSCS test
Construction, demolition and excavation produce a large share of the UK's waste, and the law makes everyone who produces, carries or holds it responsible for where it ends up. The test covers the waste hierarchy, segregation, hazardous waste and spills. Most questions come back to one idea: waste stays your responsibility from the moment you create it until it is legally disposed of.
- The waste hierarchy and what sits at the top of it
- The duty of care, and checking your waste carrier is registered
- Waste transfer notes, hazardous waste consignment notes and how long each is kept
- What counts as hazardous waste on a construction site
- Segregating waste streams and reducing waste at source
- Fuel and oil storage, spill response and protecting drains and watercourses
- Reporting pollution incidents, and why burning waste on site is not an option
Key facts worth memorising
- The waste hierarchy in order
- The Waste (England and Wales) Regulations 2011 set the priority order as prevention, preparing for re-use, recycling, other recovery (for example energy recovery), then disposal.
- Duty of care
- Under section 34 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, anyone who produces, carries, keeps, treats or disposes of controlled waste must take all reasonable measures to stop it escaping and transfer it only to an authorised person, with a written description.
- Waste transfer note, kept 2 years
- Every load of non-hazardous waste leaving site needs a waste transfer note (or a document with the same information), signed by both businesses, with a copy kept for 2 years.
- Hazardous waste, kept 3 years
- Hazardous waste moves on a consignment note, the producer keeps one copy and gives two to the carrier, and the register is kept for 3 years at the premises that produced or stored the waste.
- What counts as hazardous
- The Environment Agency lists asbestos, chemicals such as brake fluid or print toner, batteries, solvents, pesticides, oils other than edible ones, fridges and other equipment containing ozone depleting substances, and hazardous waste containers.
- The incident hotline
- The Environment Agency runs a 24 hour incident hotline on 0800 80 70 60 for pollution and waste crime in England.
- Digital waste tracking is coming, not here
- Defra's digital waste tracking service becomes mandatory for permitted waste receiving sites in England, Wales and Northern Ireland from October 2026, and for waste carriers, brokers and dealers from October 2027. It does not replace transfer notes or consignment notes, which continue alongside it.
What people get wrong
Once the skip leaves site, it is the carrier's problem.
The duty of care follows the waste. You must check the carrier is registered, describe the waste accurately, keep the transfer note and not let it be disposed of illegally.
Recycling is the top of the waste hierarchy.
Prevention comes first, then preparing for re-use, then recycling. Ordering the right quantity and reusing an off-cut both rank above sending material away to be recycled.
A small diesel or oil spill will soak away and do no lasting harm.
Fuel and oil travel through soil and drains into groundwater and watercourses. Stop, contain, tell your supervisor, then clean up. The used spill pads are then hazardous waste in their own right.
Cutting waste is management's job, not mine.
Everyone on site shares it. The ordering, storing, cutting and sorting decisions are made by the people doing the work.
Answering these questions in the test
Environmental questions reward the answer that keeps material out of the ground, the air and the water. Where options are ranked, 'use less in the first place' beats 'recycle it', which beats 'send it to landfill'. Anything involving burning waste on site, burying it, pouring it away or letting it reach a drain is wrong every time. For a spill the sequence is stop, contain, report, then clean up. And when a question asks whose responsibility something is, assume the answer includes you.
Sources
Written from the following. Where a figure could not be verified against one of these, it has been left out rather than approximated — our sources and methodology explains how we date and re-check them. Spotted something wrong? Report an error and we will fix it.
- legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2011/988/regulation/12/made
- legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/43/section/34
- gov.uk/dispose-business-commercial-waste
- gov.uk/dispose-business-commercial-waste/waste-transfer-notes
- gov.uk/dispose-hazardous-waste
- gov.uk/dispose-hazardous-waste/producers-and-holders
- gov.uk/report-environmental-problem
- gov.uk/government/publications/digital-waste-tracking-service/digital-waste-tracking-service
Topics that come up alongside environmental awareness & waste
Ready for the real thing?
When you are scoring 90% or better here, take a timed 50-question mock under exam conditions, then book your CITB HS&E test.