New publications this month:

EUROPEAN INTEGRATED POLLUTION PREVENTION AND CONTROL BUREAU

Final draft of BREF on Surface Treatment Using Organic Solvents including Preservation of Wood and Wood Products with Chemicals

A final draft of this revised BREF has been published for comment.

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, ENVIRONMENT AND RURAL AFFAIRS (DEFRA)

A variety of guidance has been published on how to meet obligations under the Fluorinated Greenhouse Gas (F gas) regime. This is of interest to organisations operating, installing and maintaining this equipment:

• Checking F gas equipment for leaks
• Company certification for work with F gas
• Qualifications to work with F gas
• Records for F gases in equipment you own or service
• Banned F gases for refilling equipment
• Recovering, reclaiming and recycling F gas

The following guidance is targeted towards suppliers of F gases and equipment using it:

• Bans on F gas in new products and equipment: current and future
• Record and report F gas and equipment you produce or import
• Selling F gas or equipment
• Labelling F gas equipment you produce, import or install

DEPARTMENT FOR BUSINESS, ENERGY & INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY (BEIS)

Non-domestic private rented property: minimum energy efficiency standard – landlord guidance

Guidance has been published for landlords of privately rented non-domestic property on complying with the ‘Minimum Energy Efficiency Standard’ (EPC band E).

Energy Technology List (ETL): information for purchasers

Guidance has been updated in relation to the categories of products included on the ETL.

Moving prohibited plants, plant pests, pathogens and soil

Guidance has been updated to account for rises in fees.

Fluorinated gases and ozone-depleting substances: how to do business if there's a no deal Brexit

Guidance has been added on what you'll need to do if you have stocks of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) in the UK or EU on exit day.

Enhanced Capital Allowance scheme for energy-saving technologies

Guidance has been updated relating to the Enhanced Capital Allowance scheme for qualifying energy technologies.

ENVIRONMENT AGENCY

Hazardous waste: consignee returns guidance (England)

Consignee return guidance has been updated to reflect changes to legislation concerning Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), which must be declared if present above thresholds.

Dispose of waste containing persistent organic pollutants (POPs)

Concentration thresholds for new POPs are included in this guidance.

Groundwater source protection zones (SPZs)

Guidance has been published on SPZs, what the different zones are defined as and how these are determined by the Environmental Agency.

Groundwater source protection zones (SPZ): production manual

Guidance has been published on how the Environment Agency defines groundwater source protection zones.

Standard Rules Permits

The Environment Agency published the following standard rule permits concerning flood risk activities in August 2019

• SR2019 No 1: installation of mooring pile in a main river
• SR2019 No 2: steps, ramps and other similar structures excavated into the existing bank profile of a main river
• SR2019 No 3: installation of water gates across a main river

Conditions under the following standard rules for flood risk activities have been updated:

• SR2015 No 26: temporary dewatering affecting up to 20 metres of a main river
• SR2015 No 27: constructing an outfall pipe up to 500mm diameter through a headwall into a main river
• SR2015 No 28: installing a clear span bridge
• SR2015 No 29: temporary storage on a flood plain of a main river
• SR2015 No 30: temporary diversion of a main river
• SR2015 No 31: channel habitat structure made of natural materials
• SR2015 No 33: repairing and protecting up to 20 metres of main river bank
• SR2015 No 34: temporary scaffolding affecting up to 20 metres of a main river
• SR2015 No 35: excavating a wetland or pond in a main river floodplain
• SR2015 No 36: site investigation boreholes and temporary trial pits
• SR2015 No 38: removing 100 metres of exposed gravel from bars and shoals

Low Risk Waste Positions

Existing low risk waste positions, which are collected in an existing document, will be withdrawn on 20 November 2019. Ongoing low risk waste positions are presented below.

Unless covered by a new low risk waste position below a permit will be required for activities previously covered by low risk waste position:

• Industrial waste
  • Storing and treating solid waste wax: LRWP 5
  • Storing and treating flex fittings from waste carbon motor brushes impregnated with silver: LRWP 37
  • Storing and using waste carbon black from tyre manufacture to make aggregate blocks: LRWP 51
  • Storing and using waste perlite to make facia bricks: LRWP 52
  • Storing degreasing solvents: LRWP 65
• Wood and plant matter
  • Storing woodchip from untreated wood packaging and using it to make pellets: LRWP 17
  • Treating waste wood fibre to make animal bedding: LRWP 62
  • Burning waste as fuel in a small appliance: LRWP 64
• Tyres, rubber and plastic
  • Storing and cutting waste rubber conveyor belts for reuse: LRWP 2
  • Storing and treating rubber encased metal wire from the manufacture of new tyres for recovery: LRWP 18
  • Storing and treating redundant athletics tracks, rubber shock pads and waste AstroTurf for reuse: LRWP 35
  • Using waste tyres for fendering systems at quaysides: LRWP 53
  • Using waste tyres for planters: LRWP 56
• Transport, vehicles, vehicle parts and metal
  • Storing and dismantling waste caravans: LRWP 14
  • Storing and dismantling small boats and barges: LRWP 31
  • Storing end of life vehicles that will be used for training in educational establishments: LRWP 44
  • Storing and treating waste cable at existing T9 exempt operations: LRWP 49
  • Storing and treating agricultural trailers and petrol lawnmowers: LRWP 55
  • Storing and treating vehicle starter motors and alternators: LRWP 70
• Storage
  • Storing furnace bottom ash (FBA) at a dockside before export or after import: LWRP 27
  • Storing waste sheep dip before it's collected for treatment or disposal: LRWP 68
• Food from retailers and producers, including former foodstuffs
  • Storing and compacting waste coffee grounds to produce a briquette: LRWP 45
• Road sweepings
  • Storing and screening road sweeping waste from building sites: RPS 63
• Paint
  • Treating up to 5 tonnes a week of non-hazardous waste paint for reuse: LRWP 7
  • Washing water-based paint containers before they are reused or recovered: LRWP 30
• Effluent and sludge
  • Dewatering and cleaning grit washings from sewage treatment works: LRWP 3
  • Using final effluent from sewage treatment works to fill empty petrol tanks during construction and maintenance at petrol stations: LRWP 19
  • Washing used sand-based animal bedding for reuse and spreading the resultant wash waters on land: LRWP 21
• Construction, demolition and dredging waste, aggregates and soils
  • Storing waste plasterboard: LRWP 6
  • Reusing wash waters and treating cement and silt washings at construction sites: LRWP 16
  • Storing and using waste clay to make cob blocks: LRWP 32
  • Storing waste bitumen at depots for recovery elsewhere: LRWP 38
  • Recovery of wastewater containing soils from pipe-laying excavations: LRWP 46
• Furniture and household items
  • Treating waste carpet and carpet tiles for recovery: LRWP 8
  • Storing and recovering cropper dust and carpet shearings from carpet manufacture: LRWP 9
  • Storing waste carpet from the manufacturing sector: LRWP 10
  • Storing waste uPVC window frames: LRWP 41
  • Using shredded waste carpet in equestrian surfaces: LRWP 43
  • Storing and treating waste divan bed bases: LRWP 54
• Electrical equipment, including constituent parts and accessories
  • Storing and dismantling waste domestic gas meters: LRWP 11
  • Shredding computer hard drives: LRWP 20
  • Storing and treating waste domestic gas boilers: LRWP 40
  • Storing and treating scroll compressors from air conditioning and refrigeration units: LRWP 48
• Manure
  • Storing and using manure to make a wormery: LRWP 23
• Landspreading
  • Storing and spreading zoo manure to benefit land: LRWP 13
  • Spreading waste soil and stones from the construction of conservation ponds to benefit land: LRWP 22
  • Storing and spreading non-composted fraction from vermiculture to benefit land: LRWP 24
  • Spreading waste silt from watercress bed settlement ponds: LRWP 28
  • Storing and spreading hemp chaff to benefit land: LRWP 29
  • Storing and spreading gypsum waste to benefit land: LRWP 59
  • Storing and spreading biochar to benefit land: LRWP 61
• Animals and animal waste
  • Storing and recovering waste animal bedding from pet retail outlets: LRWP 25
  • Storing pet cremation ash at a veterinary practice before the owner collects it: LRWP 34
  • Storing and treating animal bedding from horse stables to make biomass pellets or briquettes: LRWP 36
  • Storing dead wild animals collected from highways and public areas: LRWP 39
  • Burning bee keeping waste after a disease or infection: LRWP 66
• Miscellaneous
  • Recovering silver from waste developing and fixing solutions: LRWP 1
  • Storing and bottling wash water from flushing bottling machines: LRWP 4
  • Storing and treating used gun cartridges: LRWP 12
  • Storing and bagging spent mushroom compost: LRWP 15
  • Storing and treating horticultural rockwool for reuse: LRWP 26
  • Storing and dismantling waste shop fittings: LRWP 42
  • Storing and draining domestic oil storage tanks and their residues: LRWP 47
  • Storing and treating waste plastic by cleaning, washing, spraying or coating: LRWP 50
  • Storing and treating used electrical insulating oil for reuse: LRWP 57
  • Burning landfill gas in a small appliance: LRWP 58
  • Storing and treating waste to make biochar: LRWP 60
  • Repairing, refurbishing and cleaning intermediate bulk containers (IBCs) formally used in the food industry: LRWP 67
  • Storing empty lubricating oil containers for recovery: LRWP 69

Regulatory Position Statements (RPSs)

Use of manufactured topsoil: RPS 190

This RPS was updated during August 2019 for clarity purposes, including to state that it only applies to non-hazardous waste.

Using unbound municipal incinerator bottom ash aggregate (IBAA) in construction activities: RPS 206

This RPS will now remain valid until 31 January 2020 to allow research work with industry to conclude.

NATURAL RESOURCES WALES

Regulatory Decision: Tranche B Specified Generator permitting date

This regulatory decision has been updated. Natural Resources Wales will not normally enforce the requirement to have a permit to operate as a Specified Generator, which includes a Tranche B Generator, before 31 October 2019.

FORESTRY COMMISSION

Tree felling: getting permission

Guidance has been updated on getting permission to fell trees.

Apply online for a felling licence

Guidance has been simplified to help new users access the Felling Licence Online service.

Environment Agency seizes vehicles in Warwickshire

Officers from the Environment Agency’s Environmental Crime Team, along with Warwickshire police officers, seized 5 vehicles from a farm field near Stratford-upon-Avon on 14 August 2019.

The vehicles seized were three 360-degree diggers, a large bulldozer type digger and an HGV tipper truck. The Environment Agency believes the vehicles were being used to dump and spread large volumes of contaminated soil at a non-permitted site.

Enforcement Action

The owners of the vehicles have until 6 September 2019 to claim to have the vehicles returned to them by the Environment Agency. If no legitimate claim is made, the vehicles will be sold or crushed.

Directors found guilty of waste crimes

Two directors of a waste service company have been given suspended sentences of imprisonment after being found guilty of abandoning nearly 2,000 tonnes of waste in Dudley in 2016.

Jurors at Wolverhampton Crown Court had convicted Kevin Allan and Brian McIntosh of Rowanoak Waste Services Limited for their failure to comply with permit conditions and enforcement notices at the site known as Rowanoak.

The Environment Agency used various enforcement tools to try and bring the site back into compliance, but those operating the site failed to act on the advice and guidance provided.

The site was then abandoned in 2016 with a significant amount of waste left in situ. Environment Agency officers worked with the new landowners and the waste was removed in March 2018.

Penalties

Rowanoak Waste Services Limited was fined £25,000.

Kevin Allan received 12 months imprisonment suspended for 12 months, was ordered to complete 100 hours of unpaid work, and to pay £40,000 towards the prosecution costs. Kevin Allan has also been disqualified from acting as a company director for three years.

Mak Waste Ltd was fined £18,000. Brian McIntosh was sentenced to 10 months imprisonment suspended for 12 months, ordered to complete 150 hours of unpaid work, to pay £1,200 towards the prosecution costs and was disqualified from being a director for five years.

A further man, Randle Hawkins, was ordered to complete 100 hours of unpaid work and pay £1,000 towards prosecution costs.

Waste fraudster receives further jail time for failing to repay proceeds of crime

A man currently serving a record 7 years and 6 months custodial sentence after defrauding the electrical waste recycling industry of £2.2 million has received further jail time after failing to repay the proceeds of crime.

In February 2019, the man (Terry Soloman Dugbo) was ordered to pay back more than £1.3 million of the £2.2 million he acquired through illegal activity. This was on top of being ordered to pay back £79,000 from a previous Environment Agency prosecution for exporting hazardous waste to Nigeria and over £17,000 from a conviction for VAT fraud.

Despite numerous court orders, the man failed to make any payments towards the £1.3 million order and inadequate payments towards the other two. So far, a total of approximately £46,000 has been made towards an earlier order. The man insisted he had no money to pay these orders and unsuccessfully attempted to have the orders reduced.

On 22 August 2019, a judge ruled that there was no realistic prospect of Dugbo paying the outstanding amount and sent him to prison for an extended period.

Dugbo was originally found guilty in 2016 after Environment Agency officers discovered falsified paperwork was used to illegitimately claim that his Leeds-based firm, TLC Recycling LTD, had collected and recycled over 19,500 tonnes of household electrical waste during 2011. Dugbo’s company had never handled the amount of waste described and was not entitled to receive money through the Producer Compliance Scheme.

Documents seized as part of the investigation showed that Dugbo’s company claimed money for waste collections from streets and properties that did not exist. Vehicles used to transfer waste were recorded as being in Northern Ireland, England, and Scotland on the same day. Some vehicles did not exist at all, and some documents showed vast weights of waste being collected by vehicles that could not carry such loads: for example, a moped was said to have carried waste 42 times, and on one trip it was said to have carried 991 TVs and 413 fridges between Dugbo’s businesses. Weights of individual items said to have been collected were also exaggerated: fax machines were logged as weighing 47kg, and drills 80kg.

Custodial Sentence

Terry Soloman Dugbo received the following additional custodial sentences:

• A further 8 years for failing to pay the £1.3 million order;
•  14 months for the older Environment Agency order (reduced from 21 months for the money already paid); and
• 2 months for the order relating to VAT fraud.

Each sentence will be served consecutively to each other. Dugbo will now have to serve the extra time after finishing his current sentence unless he pays the money owed.