New publications this month:

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURAL, ENVIRONMENT AND RURAL AFFAIRS (DEFRA)

Stop ragwort and other harmful weeds from spreading

Guidance on these weeds now includes details of inspection and enforcement.

Controls of mercury

DEFRA has published guidance on how to comply with the Mercury Regulation (EC) 2017/852.

Regulating persistent organic pollutants if there’s no Brexit deal

Guidance has been published on how persistent organic products will be regulated should the UK leave the EU without a deal.

ENVIRONMENT AGENCY

Assessing and scoring environmental permit compliance

Guidance has been updated regarding how environmental permit compliance for radioactive substances activities is assessed.

Manage waste on land: guidance for land managers

This guidance has been updated to clarify that the Environment Agency has no duty to clear waste fly-tipped on private land.

Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE)

Waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE): reuse and treatment

Guidance has been updated to reflect that Approved Authorised Treatment Facilities for WEEE must submit quarterly returns via the WEEE online system.

Waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE): exporting

Guidance has been updated to reflect that Approved Exporters of WEEE must submit quarterly returns via the WEEE online system.

DEFRA, ENVIRONMENT AGENCY, NATURAL RESOURCES WALES & WELSH GOVERNMENT

Medium Combustion Plant (MCP)

A range of guidance has been provided on the MCP regime:

• Medium combustion plant and specified generators: environmental permits
• Medium combustion plant and specified generator permits: how to comply
• Medium combustion plant: when you need a permit
• Medium combustion plant: apply for an environmental permit
• Medium combustion plant (MCP): comply with emission limit values
• Part B activities: combustion and incineration permits

Specified Generators

Further guidance has been published under the MCP regime, concerning duties on ‘specified generators’:

• Specified generator: when you need a permit
• Specified generator: apply for an environmental permit
• Specified generators: dispersion modelling assessment
• Specified generator: comply with permit conditions

WELSH GOVERNMENT

Petroleum Licensing

Guidance on who handles petroleum licensing functions and the types of licence available.

DEPARTMENT OF BUSINESS, ENERGY & INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY (BEIS)

Meeting climate change requirements if there’s no Brexit deal

Guidance has been updated to confirm that the carbon emissions tax would apply to all installations subject to the EU ETS from 4 November 2019, in the event the UK leaves the EU without a deal.

Aviation operators will not be subject to the tax, but will be required to continue monitoring and reporting greenhouse gas emissions.  

This tax regime is supported by a technical note from HMRC.

Industrial Energy Initiatives

Industrial Energy Transformation Fund

This guidance concerns the industrial energy transformation fund, which aims to support businesses with high energy use to cut energy bills and carbon emissions.

Industrial Heat Recovery Support (IHRS) Programme: How to apply

This document has been updated to reflect that the IHRS programme has been extended by a year to March 2022.

MINISTRY OF HOUSING, COMMUNITIES & LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Planning: Land affected by contamination

Guidance on the management of contamination risks as part of the planning regime has been updated.

Planning: Water supply, wastewater and water quality

Planning guidance on water supplies and waste water has been updated.

DEPARTMENT FOR AGRICULTURE, ENVIRONMENT AND RURAL AFFAIRS (DAERA)

Wood packaging material import requirements into Northern Ireland

Guidance is provided on requirements or importing wooden packaging material (including solid wood pallets) to Northern Ireland.

FORTHCOMING ENVIRONMENT BILL AND FUTURE POLICY

DEFRA has published responses to consultations on various environmental policy initiatives. The majority of these will form part of a forthcoming Environment Bill. The measures will have significant impacts on waste, resources, planning and biodiversity.

Plastic packaging tax

This consultation proposed a tax on plastic packaging comprising less than 30% recycled content.

The response states that a significant proportion of respondents disagreed with the original proposals, including not to include ‘filled packaging imports’ in the scheme. Although the tax is anticipated to proceed, the government will set out the next steps at Budget 2019.

HMRC will also consult on the tax design at later date and publish draft legislation for consultation in 2020.

Biodiversity net gain: updating planning requirements

The government plans to require a biodiversity net gain contribution of 10% for developments through the planning regime. This will be subject to narrow exemptions, and a lower net gain requirement may be applied to minor residential developments.

A transitional period of two years will apply to the introduction of the net gain requirement.

Government will establish a publicly available habitat register of compensatory habitat sites for net gain contributions.

The Environment Bill will legislate for Local Nature Recovery Strategies which will detail existing areas of high biodiversity value as well as those areas where habitat creation or restoration would add most value.

Exemptions

A targeted exemption will be applied for brownfield sites meeting criteria including that they:

• do not contain priority habitats; and
• face genuine difficulties in delivering viable development.

Marine development will also be exempt.

Conservation Covenants

Conservation covenants will be introduced under the Environment Bill. These plan to make it easier for landowners and bodies to do or not do something on their land for conservation purposes.

Improving our management of water in the environment

The government intends to adopt the proposals consulted on via the Environment Bill or other legislation, including to:

• Introduce statutory drainage and wastewater management planning;
• Amending internal drainage methodology to calculate expenses for drainage of non-agricultural and agricultural land; and
• To explore new means to fund flood and coastal erosion management

Introduction a Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) for drinks containers (bottles and cans)

A deposit return scheme will be introduced for drinks containers in England and Wales into law via the Environment Bill.

The government is to consult on the proposed scope and model of the deposit return scheme in 2020 and intends to start the scheme no later than 2023.

Packaging waste: changing the UK producer responsibility system for packaging waste

The government will introduce an extended producer responsibility system for packaging in 2023. This will form part of the Environment Bill. Users of packaging will be liable for the full net costs of managing packaging waste and measures by reforming the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations 2007.

Final proposals for the scheme are expected to be consulted on in 2020.

Waste and recycling: making recycling collections consistent in England

The government will work with local authorities, waste management businesses and others to develop more detailed regulations and guidance for consistent, standardised recycling.

Measures are expected to come into effect from 2023.

Tanker driver fined for discharging waste on a public road

A tanker driver from Durham has been fined after he was found to have discharged contaminated water into a highway drain in Tyne and Wear.

On the evening of 13 July 2017 the driver was filmed discharging black liquid by a passing motorist. This liquid subsequently flowed through gulley holes at the roadside adjacent to the Bradley Burn.

Records confirmed that the tanker driver had driven from Hartlepool to Ryton, where approximately 8,000 litres of waste was drawn out from a storage tank and taken to a sewage treatment works. He later made the return journey to extract a further 8,000 litres, but rather than taking it to the sewage works he emptied the contents on to the road.

In court the driver accepted that what he’d done was wrong, but insisted he had been placed under pressure to do so by his now former Hartlepool based employers as the tanker had to be taken in for repairs that evening.

The Environment Agency assessed the scene of the incident on the day after the offence. The Environment Agency officer decided that no obvious lasting impact was made upon the watercourse.

Fines

The driver, Stanley Hall, was fined £1,352.

Water companies instructed to improve their act to protect the environment from pollution

After an annual report identified that serious pollution incidents by water companies increased in 2018, the Environment Agency has proposed a tougher regulatory approach.

The increased rate of incidents reverses the trend of gradual performance in the sector since the rating system began in 2011.

The Environment Agency chair has pledged to continue to work with Ofwat to look at financial penalties to drive better environmental performance of water companies. Fines are currently only a fraction of turnover. The Environment Agency also proposed increased inspections.

The annual report rates each of the nine water and sewerage companies in England as either green, amber or red on a range of measures including serious pollution, pollution per km of sewer pipes, supply resilience, self-reporting of pollution and complying with permits. This report also ranks companies in terms of performance.

The report highlighted the best and worst performance including:

• Northumbrian Water improved to gain the highest rating of 4 stars;
• Severn Trent Water, United Utilities and Wessex Water dropped from 4 stars to 3 stars, with Anglian Water and Thames Water remaining on 3 stars. Companies with 3 stars must improve their performance to reduce their impact on the environment;
• Southern Water, South West Water and Yorkshire Water were only given 2 stars and described as demonstrating an ‘unacceptable level of performance; and
• Again this year South West Water is poor performing and has consistently demonstrated unacceptable performance and a red rating for pollution incidents. Most water companies look set to fail to meet 2020 pollution targets.
• Southern Water and Thames Water failed to demonstrate they have robust enough plans to maintain secure water supplies.

Company directors convicted after 2 major fires

Two former directors of a skip hire company in Kidderminster have been given suspended prison sentences and community punishment orders.

The directors ran a waste recycling facility under the trading name of Lawrences Recycling and Waste Management Ltd under an environmental permit. They claimed the site was the largest indoor waste management facility in Europe.

Between August 2012 and December 2012, the company stored excessive quantities of waste at the site in breach of the environmental permit, despite warnings given by the Environment Agency. These failures to properly assess the risk of fire and manage waste appropriately culminated in a serious fire when waste self-combusted in December 2012. The fire burned for nearly a week.

In spite of that fire and further warnings from the Environment Agency and Hereford and Worcester Fire and Rescue Service, the company continued to accept and store thousands of tonnes of waste to avoid the cost of disposal and in a way that put the environment at risk. This led to a second fire at the site in June 2013. The fire burned for eight weeks and resulted in a major impact to the environment and local community. The smoke had a significant impact on air quality and affected the operation of businesses around the site.

Water used to fight the fire in 2013 was contaminated by the burning waste and flowed into the nearby Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal. The contaminated water that entered the canal in June 2013 resulted in the deaths of 3,000 fish and threatened drinking water supplies. Hereford and Worcester Fire and Rescue Service described the fires as two of the biggest firefighting operations it had ever had to deal with.

The company did not have buildings insurance after the first fire, and went into administration in September 2013, leaving the Environment Agency, Fire Service, Wyre Forest District Council and Worcester County Council to pay thousands of pounds to demolish the building, extinguish the fire and control pollution until the site was eventually sold.

The pollution incident was categorised by court sentencing guidelines as being at the highest level.

Penalty

David Lawrence was the company operations director and designated technically competent manager. He was sentenced to 9 months’ imprisonment, suspended for 2 years, and ordered to complete 180 hours of unpaid work.

Andrew Gibson was the company chairman and sales director. He was sentenced to 4 and a half months imprisonment, suspended for 2 years, and ordered to complete 90 hours of unpaid work.