Environmental Protection Act (EPA) & Pollution Prevention and Control (PPC)

Polluting activities and Industrial emissions in the UK have been controlled, to some extent, for over 150 years and are currently regulated under both the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (EPA) and the Pollution Prevention and Control Act 1999 (PPC).

There are also a number of other directives that contribute towards the regulation of porno italiani environmental emissions such as the Solvent Emissions Directive (SED) and the Waste Incineration Directive (WID). There are a number of guidance documents available to provide information about the structure and requirements of these regulations.

  • GG Notes (General Guidance)
  • AQ Notes (additional guidance notes on local authority industrial pollution control issues)
  • PG Notes (Process Guidance) The Process Guidance (PG) notes are issued under the EPA and PPC Regulations. They form statutory guidance on what constitute the Best Available Techniques (BAT) for the installations regulated.

In 2000, the PPC regulations came into effect throughout UK industry as required by the EC Directive (96/61). This resulted in the need for significant changes to the regulatory requirements. Since then, old EPA regimes of Integrated Pollution Control (IPC) and Local Air Pollution Control (LAPC) have begun the process of being progressively replaced by the new regimes of PPC. The PPC regulations introduced 3 new systems of pollution control:

  1. Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC), which covers installations known as A(1) installations, which are regulated by the Environment Agency;
  2. Local Authority Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (LA-IPPC) which covers installations known as A(2) installations, which are regulated by local authorities;
  3. Local Authority Pollution Prevention and Control (LAPPC), which covers installations known as Part B installations, also regulated by local authorities.

A(1) installations generally have a greater potential to pollute the environment than A(2) installations and Part B installations would have the least potential to pollute. Similar to the EPA system which required all industrial activities to have an authorisation to operate; all polluting activities which fall under the remit of the PPC regulations are required to be ‘permited’. These ‘permits’ contain conditions of operations which act to reduce or prevent the emissions of pollutants and reduce or prevent the usage of polluting substances.

Best Available Technique (BAT)

The aim of the PPC regime is achieving a high level of protection of the environment. This is achieved by, among other things, requiring operators to use the best available techniques (BAT).

Regulations define BAT as “the most effective and advanced stage in the development of activities and their methods of operation which indicates the practical suitability of particular techniques for providing in principle the basis for emission limit values designed to prevent and, where that is not practicable, generally to reduce emissions and the impact on the environment as a whole”.

Solvent Emissions Directive (SED)

The Solvent Emissions (England and Wales) Regulations 2004, SI 107, which came into force on 20 January 2004.

The aim of this Directive is to prevent or reduce the direct and indirect effects of emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) into the environment (mainly into air), and to minimise the potential risks to human health.

There are strict requirements for those activities using potentially more harmful substances such as halogenated VOCs which are assigned the risk phrase R40 or VOCs that are classified as carcinogenic, mutagenic or toxic to reproduction and which carry the risk phrase R45, R46, R49, R60 or R61.

The Directive also requires Regulators to request ‘Solvent Management Plans’ (SMP) from the permitted installations. The SMP is effectively a tool for determining the VOC or Solvent Usage and emissions.

Waste Incineration Directive (WID)

The Waste Incineration Directive (WID) is a single piece of European legislations which introduces operating conditions and sets minimum technical requirements for waste incineration and co-incineration. It covers virtually all waste incineration, and co-incineration plants.