The Finance Act 2013 introduces the main CCL rates applicable from 1 April 2014. There is a slight increase in the rate for all fuels.
A 2013 amendment introduces the formula which establishes the quantity of fuel referable to the production of electricity in a CHP station on which carbon price support rates of the CCL are due. A second 2013 amendment corrects an error in this formula by excluding fuel used to produce mechanical power.
Environment Agency
PS022: When a motor vehicle is considered to be waste
This position statement sets out the Environment Agency's view on when an abandoned, accident damaged or stolen motor vehicle is classed as waste.
WM2 Guidance: Hazardous Waste - Interpretation of the definition and classification of hazardous waste
This is a technical guidance note published by the Environment Agency to support the Hazardous Waste (England and Wales) Regulations 2005.
Appendix D - Waste Sampling - A supplement to Hazardous Waste : Interpretation of the definition and classification of hazardous waste (3rd Edition 2013) - Technical Guidance WM2
A supplement to the hazardous waste technical guidance (WM2) published by the Environment Agency that provides further guidance on sampling to assess and classify wastes.
Shale Gas Exploratory Operations: Technical Guidance
This document is designed to make it easier for operators, their consultants and other technical audiences, such as local authority planning officers, to understand what environmental regulations apply to the activity of exploring for, and assessing the quantity and quality of, natural gas in shale formations in England. It does this either by signposting the reader to existing Environment Agency advice and guidance, or by providing clarity on how pre-existing regulations and guidance apply to exploratory shale gas operations.
An Environmental Risk Assessment for Shale Gas Exploratory Operations in England
Practical experience of shale gas exploration in the UK is limited and there are currently no Best Available Techniques (BAT) definitions. The Environment Agency has produced this Environmental Risk Assessment (ERA) to help gain an understanding of the key environmental risks and to underpin aspects of technical guidance for onshore oil and gas operators.
Technical Guidance Note (Monitoring) M17 - Monitoring of particulate matter in ambient air around waste facilties.
This is a technical guidance note for the MCERTS scheme, number M17 - monitoring ambient particulates around waste facilities, published by the Environment Agency.
Understanding Your Environmental Responsibilities - Good Environmental Practices.
This is the updated version of the Environment Agency's PPG1.
How to comply with your Environmental Permit
This is guidance for operators on what they need to do to comply with the conditions of their environmental permits issued under the Environmental Permitting Regulations. This guidance explains the conditions or rules of environmental permits. It describes the standards and measures that must be used to control the most common risks of pollution from activities and how to comply with the conditions of your permit.
European Union
No relevant publications
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Hazardous waste national policy statement: post-adoption statement
This explains how the Government took into account reports and responses and why they chose this plan for the hazardous waste national policy statement.
London 2012 legacy: Sustainable procurement for construction projects
A guide that shares lessons learnt on sustainable procurement of construction projects from the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Hazardous waste national policy statement
The National Policy Statement (NPS) sets out Government policy for the hazardous waste infrastructure.
Greenhouse gas conversion factors for company reporting 2013: methodology paper for emission factors
This report provides the methodological approach, the key data sources and the assumptions used to define the emission factors provided in the 2013 GHG Conversion Factors.
Biodiversity 2020: simple guide and progress update: July 2013
This report provides a simple guide to Biodiversity 2020 (national strategy for England’s wildlife and ecosystem services) and an update on progress so far.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change
Response to the European Commission’s consultation on the EU’s 2030 climate and energy framework
This response presents the UK’s analysis of the lessons learnt from the EU’s 2020 framework, and its vision for 2030 supported by a reformed EU emissions trading scheme.
Eligibility criteria for technologies that qualify for the Energy-saving Enhanced Capital Allowance Scheme
The Energy Technology List comprises the technologies that qualify for the UK government’s Energy-saving Enhanced Capital Allowance (ECA) scheme and their energy-saving eligibility criteria.
Exploring the use of Display Energy Certificates
This research report explores how Display Energy Certificates (DECs) have been used in energy management and decision-making.
A comparison of emissions factors for electricity generation.
The aim of this note is to explain the differences between electricity emissions factors and the reasons for these differences.
Guidance on the CRC repayment mechanism for surplus allowances
The CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme Order 2013 (‘the CRC Order’) introduced a mechanism whereby participants that have surrendered more allowances than required (‘surplus allowances’) to their cancellation account may make a request through their account holder to the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (‘DECC’) for the repayment of the balance. DECC may repay the balance to the account holder, subject to a possible deduction of any banking charges incurred during that transaction.
This guidance has been produced to explain:
This guidance applies to all CRC participants in the United Kingdom. A repayment request form is included to help with the submission of repayment requests.
Department for Communities and Local Government
Planning practice guidance for onshore oil and gas
Guidance on how shale gas (and other onshore oil and gas) developments should proceed through England's planning system.
Planning for sustainable waste management: determination under regulation 9 of the Environmental Assessment of Plans and Programme Regulations 2004
This statement sets out whether or not a Strategic Environmental Assessment is required for the proposed update of national waste planning policy
Scottish Government
Planning Scotland's Seas: National Marine Plan: Sustainability Appraisal Report
This report summarises the findings from a Sustainability Appraisal (SA) of the draft National Marine Plan (NMP).
Planning Circular: The relationship between the statutory land use planning system and marine planning and licensing
This circular explores the linkages between the marine and terrestrial planning systems and provides guidance about joint working.
Operators of Falmouth Docks fined for pollution spill
A ship repair company has been ordered to pay £24,300 in fines and costs for polluting Cornwall's famous Fal estuary with toxic paint sludge.
On 29 September 2011 the Agency received a report of pollution in the estuary. On arrival an officer saw a large rusty-coloured plume in the harbour covering an area approximately the size of a football pitch. The pollution was traced to Falmouth Docks where a Royal Fleet Auxilliary (RFA) vessel, the Cardigan Bay, was being refurbished by A & P Falmouth Ltd. High pressure jets were being used to remove antifouling paint from the ship’s hull.
Most of the blast spraying was done with a large machine that collected paint particles in a special hopper. However, a smaller machine and hand lances were used on the underside of the ship and other difficult to reach areas of the vessel. This smaller machine didn’t have a hopper which meant paint flakes and sludge escaped into the dock.
When the dock was hosed out, the sludge and paint flakes were washed down a drain and into the estuary, a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and Special Area of Conservation (SAC).
Samples of the discharge were tested by the Agency and found to contain Tributyltin (TBT), a highly toxic compound which has been banned worldwide since 2008 following the intervention of the International Maritime Organisation of the UN.
TBT was widely used in antifouling paint to prevent marine organisms including seaweed and barnacles attaching themselves to ships’ hulls. Antifouling paints containing TBT were found to cause genetic mutations, sterility and death in fish and aquatic life. The substance does not easily break down in the environment and can poison larger sea animals as it moves up the food chain.
The paint sludge discharged from the docks was also found to contain high residues of toxic metals including copper, zinc, lead and iron. A & P Falmouth Ltd operates under permit issued by Cornwall Council that doesn’t allow the company to treat vessels containing TBT. When RFA Cardigan Bay arrived at Falmouth Docks, the company relied on a certificate supplied by the ship’s owner, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) to ensure it didn’t contain TBT.
The certificate confirmed that TBT-free paint was delivered to the vessel when it was last painted in Bahrain in 2009, but could not guarantee the same paint was applied to the ship. The only way to have been sure would have been for A & P Falmouth to have taken a sample from the ship’s hull prior to removal of the paint.
TBT levels in the discharge from the dock were found to be 11 times higher than the highest background concentrations ever recorded in the Fal estuary, one of the largest deepwater harbours in the world.
The Fal is famous for its shellfish including mussels, scallops and oysters that are hand dredged by local fishermen. Shellfish are among the organisms affected by TBT that can cause oysters to grow deformed shells.
The concentrations of certain toxic compounds discharged into the estuary were so high they posed a risk to wildlife.
Magistrates expressed concern that the paint certificate ‘paper trail’ at the docks had failed and urged A & P Falmouth and/or the Environment Agency to raise the matter with the appropriate regulatory authorities.
A & P Falmouth Ltd was fined £10,000 and ordered to pay £14,300 costs after pleading guilty to two offences including causing a polluting discharge to enter tidal waters and being in breach of its Local Authority permit.
Since the incident, the company has started using hessian filters to capture potentially harmful substances and reduce the risk of pollutants escaping into the internationally important Fal estuary.
Rentokil company fined for hazardous waste offences
A subsidiary of the international company, Rentokil, has been fined £4,000 for hazardous waste offences at a site in Devon. The case was brought by the Environment Agency.
Rentokil Initial Services operates a waste transfer station at Okehampton where washroom wastes including air freshener canisters are taken for treatment prior to being sent for recovery or disposal.
The canisters contain a hazardous aerosol propellant that makes them subject to the Hazardous Waste (England and Wales) Regulations 2005. On arrival at the transfer station, the aerosol cans are pierced using a carbon filter rendering them non-hazardous.
In 2010 an Agency officer inspected the waste transfer station and asked why Initial Washroom Services were not submitting consignment notes to the Agency for any hazardous waste arriving at the transfer station in accordance with the site’s environmental permit.
The company said it did not believe consignment was necessary as the hazardous aerosol cans had come from its customers’ premises and remained the property of IWS. They had not ‘changed hands’. The company did not consider the cans to be waste until they were disposed of.
A court heard the company had previously received extensive guidance and advice from the Environment Agency relating to the consignment of hazardous waste, but had failed to take action.
Rentokil Initial Services Ltd pleaded guilty to three offences under the Hazardous Waste (England & Wales) Regulations 2005 including, between September 24 – October 1, 2012, failing to complete hazardous waste consignment notes (£1,000 fine) failing to make a consignee quarterly return to the Environment Agency (£1,000) and failing to keep records and registers (£2,000).
South London company fined £51,500 for waste offences at Erith site
A South London waste management company has been fined £51,500 at Bromley Magistrates’ Court after pleading guilty to storing over twenty times the permitted amount of waste at their Erith site.
Metropolitan Waste Management (WR) Limited pleaded guilty to 14 charges under regulation 38 of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2010, and was fined £51,500, ordered to pay costs of £9,773 and pay a Victim Surcharge of £15. The Environment Agency brought charges against Metropolitan Waste Management, a waste recycling company who operate the site in Manor Road, Erith, following the service of Enforcement Notices in April and July 2012 related to the volume of waste stored at the site.
Metropolitan Waste Management processes wood and general waste to produce a material which can be used at waste to energy plants, an activity that can produce dust particulate pollution if not controlled properly. Permit conditions were in place to ensure that local amenities are not affected by the waste operation from dust, noise or odour; principally, a maximum storage height of 3 metres and a maximum storage volume of 1500m3.
A visit by Environment Officers on 13 April 2012 discovered the volume of waste to be much higher than permitted. Consequently, an enforcement notice was served on 16 April 2012 requiring the site to comply with the permit conditions by 11 May 2012. Subsequent visits revealed minimal reductions had taken place, and when the notice expired the volume of waste on site was found to be over ten times the permitted level.
The Environment Agency worked with Metropolitan Waste Management to reduce the amount of waste on site and reductions were seen in June 2012, but they increased significantly by July, reaching over twenty times the permitted volume. A further enforcement notice was issued on 26 July 2012, with a new deadline of 21 August 2012.
A visit on that date found the company were still in breach of the enforcement notice and their Environmental Permit. Volumes of waste were calculated to be over 21 times the permitted volume, and were stored at heights of 7 metres, over double the permitted height.
The court acknowledged that improvements have now been made on site, but found that the breaches were flagrant, significant and financially motivated.
Asbestos offences cost couple £80,397
Two waste operators who ran an illegal site in Benfleet have been ordered to hand over £80,397 compensation, confiscation and fines by Chelmsford Crown Court. A1 Bins and Waste Ltd’s director David John Tuffen and manager Nigel Lee Hickman were given suspended prison sentences in February after Chelmsford Crown Court heard that the company illegally stored waste at Towerfields Business Park.
Environment Agency officers found 72 large skips full of asbestos waste at the site during investigations of asbestos fly-tipping around Essex, Hertfordshire and Kent.
The two men were each fined £3,000 for failing their duty of care to stop that fly-tipping by a sub-contracted driver. The driver, Moses Benjamin Brede, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to dumping five loads of waste asbestos.
Tuffen and Hickman were also each ordered to pay £13,841 compensation to landowners who cleaned up the fly-tip sites. Tuffen was also ordered to pay £30,557 and Hickman £16,158 from the proceeds of their crimes. They were warned by the judge that if they did not pay on time they could go to prison.
At an earlier hearing the court heard that the company had been in financial difficulty towards the end of 2008. Waste asbestos was taken back to the Towerfields yard to bulk it up and store it there.
A1 Bins advertised as a specialist asbestos waste transport and disposal company. This had given the impression of knowledge and trustworthiness. The court heard that underpinning that trust was the supply of what appeared to be legitimate invoices and consignment notes showing that the hazardous waste had been taken to and signed for by an Oxfordshire landfill site. These were false.
the EA prosecuter said £427,000 went through the business between April 2008 and February 2009.
Brede was sentenced to 12 months prison for each of five offences to run concurrently and suspended for two years. He was also ordered to pay £500 contribution towards costs. Tuffen was sentenced to two years in prison, suspended for two years, and ordered to carry out 200 hours unpaid work. Hickman was given an 18-month prison sentence suspended for two years and ordered to carry out 200 hours unpaid work.
Hickmanand Tuffenpleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 12, 38(1)(a) and 41(1)(a) and (b) Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2007 and to numerous breaches of Section 34(1)(a), (6) and 157(1) Environmental Protection Act 1990.
Natural Resources Wales conclude investigation to Environmental Damage in Llyn Padarn
An in-depth year-long investigation by Natural Resources Wales has found that water quality in a popular North Wales lake was damaged in 2009.
Llyn Padarn in Llanberis, an important part of the economy in the area, was affected by an algal bloom in 2009 which effectively closed the lake during the summer months.
The report shows that although water quality in the lake was damaged in 2009, a stricter limit on D?r Cymru Welsh Water’s sewage treatment works in Llanberis in 2010, imposed by the regulator, has stabilised the situation.
The investigation under the Environmental Damage (Preventation and Remediation) (Wales) Regulations 2009 followed a complaint received by the then regulator, Environment Agency Wales.
