Environment Agency consultation on Appropriate Measures for Permitted Waste Facilities

Consultation closing 13th of November, where the Environmental Agency (EA) seeks consultation guidance that will apply to all existing and new permitted waste management facilities that manage non-hazardous and inert wastes. The guidance includes the enclosure of waste in a building as a default control measure.

Please find the consultation here and the survey here.

This includes facilities operating under an installation or waste operation permit. Examples of permitted facilities it will apply to are; HWRCs; waste transfer stations; materials facilities; inert waste, aggregate, and soil treatment facilities; and treatment facilities for processing wastes such as wood, tyres, plastics and mattresses.  A number of non-hazardous waste types are specifically excluded, including biowaste treatment, and the guidance will also apply to permit exempt facilities which store or treat non-hazardous or inert waste.

In effect, the guidance seeks to apply Best Available Techniques to waste management at facilities within its scope and these techniques include enclosure of waste in a building as one of the default control measures.  Voices from industry have expressed concern about this and will call for the guidance to more explicitly recognise and enable appropriate risk-based alternatives to some of the EA’s proposed ‘default’ requirements.

REA members who have points to raise for the REA’s response to this consultation should contact Jenny Grant ([email protected]) ASAP.

Please note the EA’s separate guidance on Appropriate Measures for the Biological Treatment of Waste has been consulted on and applies to composting, AD, TAD, MBT, MHT, treatment of sewage sludge using any of those processes, aerated lagoons, activated sludge and the storage of ‘recovered’ composts, digestates.’