New publications this month:

EUROPEAN INTEGRATED POLLUTION PREVENTION AND CONTROL BUREAU (EIPPCB)

Best Available Techniques (BAT) Reference Document for Waste Treatment

An updated Best Available Techniques Reference (BREF) document has been published for the waste treatment sector. This document supports the recently published BAT Conclusion document for this sector (Decision (EU) 2018/1147).

Draft Best Available Techniques (BAT) Reference Document in the Food, Drink and Milk Industries

A final draft of the updated BREF document for this sector has been published.

DEPARTMENT FOR BUSINESS, ENERGY AND INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY (BEIS)

Energy Company Obligation: innovation guidance

These new documents provide instructions on how energy companies may discharge their obligations under the third round of the energy company obligation scheme. This round runs between between 2018 and 2022.

ENVIRONMENT AGENCY

Electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) covered by the WEEE regulations

This document provides guidance on categories of EEE within the current scope of the WEEE regime. The scope is revised from 1 January 2019.

Personnel competency standard for manual stack emission monitoring

This standard has been updated with updated information on the MCERTS register and a revised code of conduct.

Regulatory Position Statements (RPSs)

RPS 140: Building lined biobeds in a groundwater source protection zone 1

This RPS sets out conditions that must be met to construct impermeably lined biobeds on land within groundwater source protection zone 1 without an environmental permit.

RPS 208: Waste carrier, broker and dealer registration renewals due after 25 March 2018

This RPS extends the validity period of waste carrier, broker and dealer licences due for renewal between 25 March and 10 October 2018. These licences are extended as the renewal system was not available for these licence holders. This RPS has been extended until March 2019, when the Environment Agency expects that all extended renewal dates will have been completed.

Standard Rules

The following standard rules were updated during October 2018:

• SR2009 No 4: combustion of biogas in engines at a sewage treatment works
• SR2012 No 9: on-farm anaerobic digestion using farm wastes
• SR2012 No 10: on-farm anaerobic digestion facility using farm wastes only, including use of the resultant biogas
• SR2012 No 11: anaerobic digestion facility including use of the resultant biogas
• SR2012 No 12: anaerobic digestion facility including use of the resultant biogas (waste recovery operation)

NATURAL RESOURCES WALES, SEPA AND DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, ENVIRONMENT AND RURAL AFFAIRS (DAERA)

GPP 22: Dealing with spills

This guidance for pollution prevention (GPP) document replaces the withdrawn Pollution Prevention Guideline (PPG) PPG22 Dealing with spills in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

BREXIT UPDATE

A technical note supporting the October 2018 budget details arrangements for carbon pricing within the UK, should it leave the EU without a deal on 29 March 2019.

Carbon Emissions Tax technical note

European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS)

• If the UK secures a transition agreement, it would remain a member of the EU ETS during the transition period.
• Beyond this period, the note states that the UK government is developing options for longer term carbon pricing, including remaining in the EU ETS, establishing a UK ETS which would either be linked to the EU ETS or standalone or a carbon tax.
• If the UK leaves without a deal, a carbon emissions tax would be applied on installations currently subject to the EU ETS. This would be applied at a rate of £16 per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) between 1 April and 31 December 2019. Emissions allowances for this period would be applied in accordance with the previous arrangements
• Aviation would not be subject to this tax.
• Existing monitoring, reporting and verification arrangements would reportedly remain the same in the short term.

Carbon Price Support (CPS)

Under any withdrawal scenario, it is understood that CPS rates of fuel duty applied on fuels used in electricity generation will remain unchanged. The government has committed to cap the CPS at £18 per tonne of CO2 from 1 April 2016 until 31 March 2020.

Further guidance has been issued on how various EU-derived regimes would be affected in the event the UK leaves the EU without a deal

Meeting climate change requirements if there’s no Brexit deal

This document states that in the event the UK leaves the EU without a deal, it will remain committed to international climate change agreements.

EU ETS

Should no deal be reached, the UK will leave the EU ETS and will not have access to European consolidated system of emissions registries, including those concerning the EU ETS and potentially the UK Kyoto Protocol registry. The 2018 compliance year submission under the EU ETS would be the last.

The publication recommends that operators and traders under the EU ETS plan for the possibility of losing access to the UK section of the registry and consider action to manage this risk.

Action should also be considered for traders and clean development mechanism project developers who hold accounts in the UK Kyoto Protocol national registry, as there is a possibility access could be lost.

Due to links to the EU ETS and the licensing of geological storage of carbon dioxide, the licensing regime would cease to operate pending revisions.

Energy Intensive Industries

Businesses benefiting from energy intensive industry indirect cost relief schemes should continue to comply with the requirements of these programmes.

Energy-using Products: Ecodesign and Energy Labelling

The Ecodesign regime sets mandatory standards for energy-using products. Energy labelling is required for specific types of products. Reclassified (A – G rated) energy labels will apply from 2019. Legislation implementing these regimes will be retained as UK legislation and the UK reportedly plans to maintain equivalent EU standards in the future where possible and appropriate.

UK suppliers of energy-using products subject to these regimes will become subject to two regimes should no deal be reached: a UK standards and EU standards, if products to be placed on the EU market. Suppliers to the EU would be required to enter relevant information on the EU energy labelling database, but a parallel UK-only database would not be introduced.

Classifying, labelling and packaging chemicals if there's no Brexit deal

Requirements on the classification, labelling and packaging of chemicals are applied across the EU under the CLP Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008. As an EU Regulation, this legislation came directly into force in the UK.

The classification, labelling and packaging regime is regulated by the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), who receive and process notifications. Should the UK leave the EU without a deal, an independent standalone chemicals regime would reportedly be established with the HSE, mirroring the current EU arrangements. Existing classifications and labelling requirements would continue to be applied. IT systems would reportedly be developed to notify chemicals and allow access to classification and labelling information.

The guidance states that the global harmonised system (GHS) of chemical classification, which is applied through the CLP Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008 would continue to be applied.

As the UK would become a ‘third country’, EU organisations importing chemicals from the UK would assume responsibility for compliance with the CLP Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008 within the EU.

Regulating biocidal products if there’s no Brexit deal

A standalone biocidal products regime would reportedly be established within the UK in the event of a no deal scenario. The Biocidal Products Regulation (EU) No 528/2012 will be retained as UK legislation. The approval of active substances and biocidal product authorisations within the UK would be transferred to the HSE instead of ECHA. The evaluation and assessment of these substances would also be managed by the HSE. A UK version of the Article 95 list, which records approved active substance suppliers, would be established.

Companies wishing to supply active substances or biocidal products in the EU would need to continue to apply to ECHA.

Maintaining the continuity of transfrontier waste shipments if there’s no Brexit deal

Should the UK leave the EU without a deal, import or export licences for waste issued by the UK would cease to be valid for shipments to any remaining EU Member State.

Current approvals to ship notified waste between the UK and the EU would therefore need be re-approved to ensure continuity.

Duly reasoned requests would also need to be submitted to the EU for exports of waste, justifying that the UK does not have any cannot reasonably acquire appropriate disposal facilities. Waste exports for recycling would continue as current.

In any scenario, the UK will remain a party to the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal and OECD, and therefore would continue to be subject to the prior written consent regime.

Fly-tipper receives additional prison sentence

A prison sentence has been issued in connection with five fly tipping offences that took place in a single month from a vehicle owned by Patrick Joseph Egan. Waste was dumped outside business premises during October 2017. Landlords of the sites were required to arrange disposal of the dumped waste at their own cost.

Egan pleaded guilty to three charges of illegally dumping waste at sites not permitted to accept it. The court heard that he was disqualified from driving at the time of the offences. Egan also admitted two further charges of ‘knowingly causing’ the deposit of waste at two other locations.

Egan is currently serving a prison sentence for similar offences in the London Borough of Newham.

Waste was dumped from a lorry on an industrial estate in West Thurrock on 4 October 2017 in front of two eye witnesses. Later that day the same vehicle (owned by Egan) was seen reversing into an Anglian Water Pumping Station in Grays. A witness stated that waste had been tipped from the lorry but couldn’t identify the driver.

Later that day, the same type of waste was found dumped at the main entrance gate to a site in Rainham. Again, the driver could not be identified.

The following day on 5 October a further pile of waste was discovered dumped illegally outside the closed gates of Barking Power Station. The offence was caught on camera and identified the same heavy goods vehicle, driven by Egan.

On 18 October Egan again dumped a pile of waste at the same Thurrock industrial estate in front of two eye witnesses. Two days later Egan was stopped by Essex Police and his vehicle was seized. It was carrying waste at the time it was seized.

The court heard that Egan has a previous conviction for operating without a waste carriers licence in January 2017.

Sentence

Patrick Joseph Egan was sentenced to a further two weeks for each of the five offences. These will run concurrently and be added to his current sentence.

Clinical waste management company breaches permits at two-thirds of its sites

Healthcare Environmental Services, which serves the NHS and operates six sites across England, has been found in breach of its environmental permits at four sites.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) is leading on the government response whilst the Environment Agency is taking enforcement action against the operator. Action being taken by the Environment Agency includes clearance of the excess waste. The regulator has also launched a criminal investigation in after continued permit breaches by the operator.

At four of Healthcare Environmental Services’ sites, the Environment Agency identified that more waste was held that was authorised by the permit. The company was also found to be storing waste inappropriately.

As a result of the inspection findings, the Environment Agency partially suspended the company’s permit at one of their sites. This will prevent Healthcare Environmental Services from accepting any more incinerator-only waste in order to clear the backlog of waste held.

The Environment Agency is understood to have set out a timeline for clearance of the waste and will be carrying out regular inspections at each of the company’s sites.

Van seized and crushed in response to waste offences

A van used to illegally dump waste illegally in the south of England has been seized and crushed by the Environment Agency.

The green Transit was linked to waste crime across a network of illegal sites in London and the surrounding counties. These sites were illegally entered, which involved the forcing or cutting of locks and chains, or the removal of fencing securing the sites.

The van was destroyed by a licenced scrapyard, under Environment Agency supervision, after it was seized by officers as part of an ongoing criminal investigation into the large-scale illegal dumping of commercial waste. Intensive unlawful waste-dumping involved several small trucks and the movement of caravans to mask the waste-tipping. Dumping left substantial clean-up costs for the owners.

Examination of the dumped waste by Environment Agency officers identified that much of it came from small building operations, offices, shops and other small businesses. All businesses producing waste are obligated under the duty of care. Failure to comply with this duty may lead to fines of up £5,000 in a magistrates’ court, or an unlimited fine if a case is referred to Crown court.

Powers Used

The Environment Agency is authorised to crush seized vehicles using powers granted by the Control of Waste (Dealing with Seized Property) Regulations 2015.