Environmental Legal Update

The Environment Agency has recently release updates on a range of environmental legislation that is being updated, amended or consulted upon, as part of the Smarter Environmental Regulation Review.

Overview

Paul Leinster, Chief Executive of the Environment Agency says his organisation is committed to working towards smarter guidance and data:

“The Environment Agency welcomes the important contribution the Smarter Environmental Regulation Review is playing in taking forward our better regulation approach.  Working alongside our partners in the Defra network and business we look forward to making guidance far more accessible and clear, and to reducing the volume of data that business has to submit.  We will work to ensure that the way in which data is submitted is as simple and intuitive as possible”.

Richard Ball Head of Environment at Corporate Risk Systems commented ‘ The new Smarter guidance is a step towards streamlining environmental legislation to a framework similar to health and safety regulation, were the majority of legal requirements follow a clear framework that ensures reasonable protection and without unreasonable profiteering.

Packaging Regs

This include amendments to the  Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) (Amendment) Regulations 2013 which implement Article 6 (1) of the European Parliament and Council Directive 94/62/EC on packaging and packaging waste. They provide for the calculation of glass packaging waste that a producer must recycle by re-melt and ensures that the glass re-melt target is applied to a producer’s glass recycling obligation.

Industrial Emissions Directive (IED).

On 7 January 2014 the IED will apply to all installation permits and will extend which activities require permits over the next two years. The Environment Agency will be contacting current permit holders by October 2013 to help you identify activities that may be affected by these changes.

Operators will then have to submit amended applications in accordance with the relevant deadline:

·         30th September 2014  - Gasification, Waste Recovery

·         1st Jan 2015 Hazardous Waste and Waste Treatment

·         31st March 2015, Hazardous Waste storage Waste Water Treatment and Food

The IED will allow some flexibility in how permit conditions and emission limits are set according to local environmental conditions, technical feasibility and geographic location. However, industry and regulators will have to justify any proposed deviation from BAT Conclusions and publish the outcome. Initially at least, any such justifications are likely to be closely scrutinised (by the public as well as authorities) and must be a transparent analysis of the economic costs and technical feasibility weighed against the environmental impacts and any benefits derived from meeting less stringent emission limits. The directive seeks to avoid imposing disproportionate costs on European businesses but such justifications will inevitably take time and cost money.