This document discusses various topics related to environmental pollution and waste management, including: - Classification of wastes into controlled, hazardous, inert, and other categories. - Integrated pollution control which recognizes combined effects of different types of pollution and requires considering impacts to all environments. - Waste disposal hierarchy and options like reduction, reuse, recycling, incineration, landfilling, and composting. - Legal regimes like the Environmental Protection Act that establish duties of care for waste holders and carriers and require permits, documentation, and following best practices.

1. Environmental Pollution
Classification of Wastes
Practical Waste Management
Waste Disposal
Legal Regimes Applicable

2. Environmental Pollution
 Accidental release of toxic wastes is usually result of
design or planning failure, bad engineering or
incompetent management
 Intended release may be unregulated (the cowboy
option) or condoned by public authorities (best
practicable means)

3. Environmental Pollution
 Hazardous wastes contaminate the atmosphere in
the form of solids, liquids or gases
 Discharge in rivers, lakes or at sea can be widely
dispersed by water currents
 Land dumping can contaminate soils and
groundwater
 Buried wastes often react chemically to produce
more mobile substances (e.g. landfill gas)
 Leachate may seep into unexpected places

4. Environmental Pollution
 At the lowest level are small spillages in a
workplace;
 Then we have disposal of unwanted by-products
from some operation;
 At higher levels there are the problems of storage,
transportation and disposal of large quantities of
waste produced by major plants and public
utilities

5. Integrated Pollution Control
 Recognises the combined effects of air, land and water
pollution - based on a holistic approach
 Established by Environmental Protection Act (EPA) 1990
 Part I of EPA provides for certain processes or substances to
be prescribed under regulations
 About 5000 processes or substances which are considered
to be most polluting in UK are prescribed in schedules to
the Environmental Protection (Prescribed Processes
and Substances) Regulations 1991
 Known as Part A processes, as they are on A list

6. Integrated Pollution Controlair)
 Requires that discharges to all media (land, water and
are considered and that the Best Practicable
Environment Option (BPEO) is chosen to minimise harm
to the environment as a whole
 An authorisation will require that Best Available
Techniques Not Entailing Excessive Cost (BATNEEC) are
used as a standard
 BATNEEC guidance notes are produced by DETR and
BATNEEC reviews must be undertaken every 4 years in
order to keep the process up-to-date and seek continual
improvement

7. Integrated Pollution Control
 Application to operate prescribed process must be
made to the enforcing authority and a fee paid
 Once authorisation to operate the plant is given, it is
the duty of operator to ensure that quality and
quantity of discharges is kept within the limits

8. Integrated Pollution Control
Discharge of
contaminants to air
Acid rain from air
pollution
Land used for land-fill sites;
water affected by leachates from contaminated
land

9. Waste Classification
Waste
Controlled Non-Controlled
Household Industrial Commercial
Agriculture/Mines/Quarries/
Explosives/Radioactive
Hazardous
Inert Non-Hazardous (Special)

10. Special Waste
 Controlled by Special Waste Regulations 1996
 Defined in the EC Hazardous Waste List
 Categories are mirrored in the CHIP and COSHH
Regulations and broadly include:
 Explosive, flammable and oxidising substances
 Irritants and corrosives
 Biohazards (infectious, carcinogenic, mutagenic,
teratogenic)
 Ecotoxics

11. Clinical Waste
 Should be segregated from general waste
 Separate bins, signage and training should be provided
 Sharps should go into special sharps containers

13. Duty of Care
 Established by Regs and ACOP issued under EPA on
anyone who may import, produce, transport, store, treat
or dispose of waste - any such person becomes a waste
holder
 Duty requires that waste holder must keep waste safe,
must act to prevent waste from deteriorating and
escaping into the environment

14. Duty of Care
 The waste holder must:
 Protect the waste while they have it;
 Ensure that it reaches the next holder intact
 Segregate incompatible wastes
 Ensure security
 Waste left for collection should be adequately secured
and left for a minimum of time
 Waste should be labelled where appropriate and in
accordance with the CHIP Regulations

15. Waste Carriers
 Anyone who holds waste may transfer it to a waste
carrier who must be registered with a Waste Regulation
Authority
 However, it is part of the waste holder’s duty to ensure
that carriers are suitable to handle and dispose of the
waste
 Thus the duty holder ultimately remains responsible for
the fate of the waste

16. Waste Transfer
Waste Transfer Notes Note
 System operates by Controlled Waste Transfer Notes which
describe the parties to the transfer and the waste itself
 Copies must be kept for minimum of 2 years
 Under the Special Waste Regulations 1996 a Special Waste
Transfer Note must be used for special waste, detailing the
hazardous components and their concentrations, and the
processes they originated from. These Regs also require:
 Pre-notification of any movements of such wastes (by consignment note
to EA)
 Registers of movements of special waste consignments, and records of
sites where such waste has finally been tipped
 No mixing, by carriers and consignees, of special and non-special, and
different categories of special wastes, unless it be for safe disposal
 Regular inspections of special waste producers by regulators

17. Waste Disposal
 Hierarchy of waste management:
a.) Waste reduction: Not making it in the first place, by process change and
optimising efficiency
b.) Re-use: e.g. of glass bottles and other containers
c.) Recovery of waste. Options include:
- Recycling (e.g. glass, metal, paper)
- Incineration with energy recovery
- Composting
d.) Physical/chemical treatment to reduce bulk and make hazardous waste
safe
e.) Disposal - generally to landfill
 Currently about 70% of controlled waste goes to landfill and
there is an increasing shortage of suitable landfill sites

18. Incineration
 Waste burnt at very high temperature and combustion
gas passes through series of filters to draw off toxic and
particulate materials
 Waste-to-energy plants produce steam used to heat
buildings directly or to drive turbines to generate
electricity

19. Landfill
 Site must be geologically suitable
 Environmental Impact Assessment under EPA is needed
before license is granted
 Nuisances come from noise, odours, dust, litter and
vermin
 Leachate has to be tightly controlled and drained off to
prevent contaminating water courses
 Landfill gas is normally collected in pipes laid within the
waste and is either flared off or collected and used as fuel

20. Composting
 Biodegradable fraction of waste can be broken down
by bacterial decomposition
 Produces compost, a fibrous residue which is used as a
soil conditioner, organic fertiliser, mulch and potting
medium
 In the UK home composting is encouraged with
subsidised or even free issue of small household units

21. Environmental Protection Act 1990
 Established:
 Duty of care with respect to pollution
 Code of practice for compliance
 Requirement to complete transfer notes recording details of waste
transfers
 Proper documentation and provision of information to licensed
carriers, enforcing agencies etc.
 Principles established by the Act include:
 Application for consent to discharge waste
 Polluter pays (consent fees, enforcement penalties, clean-up costs)
 Use of BATNEEC and BPEO as control strategies for schedule
substances and processes under IPC

22. Environmental Protection Act 1990
 EPA also controls various statutory nuisances -
emission of smoke, fumes, gases, dust, steam, smells,
other effluvia and noise at a level which is judged to be
prejudicial to health or a nuisance to the community or
anyone living in it
 This has implications for both industrial plant and
waste disposal sites

23. Previous Exam Questions
 Explain, with the aid of diagrams where appropriate, the
concept of “integrated pollution control” (IPC).
(10 marks)
 Section 34 of the EPA places a duty of care on persons
concerned with controlled waste:
i.) explain the meaning of the term “controlled waste”
ii.) Identify the categories of persons on whom the duty is
placed, and those who are exempt from such a duty
(10 marks)