Emission control

Fundamental changes in the ways that pollution is regulated will soon begin to hit industries in the process sector and beyond. The European Commission's Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) directive, which sets out the new rules and the industries affected by them, obliges operators to reduce and/or control everything emitted from their plants, whether harmful or not. And it even applies to pigs.

IPPC is broadly similar to integrated pollution control, the regime governing the chemical industry in the UK, but there are important differences. As the names suggest, IPPC aims to prevent pollution, rather than controlling it.

Not everyone will be immediately affected by IPPC. The directive comes into force in October 1999, but at first, only new installations and those undergoing 'substantial change' will need IPPC authorisation; the rest will continue under their current permits. The crunch comes in 2007, when all existing installations must be assessed under IPPC.

The word 'installation' marks one of the biggest differences between IPC and IPPC. IPC governs the chemical industry, and permits are granted to individual processes - so a single installation might require several permits. IPPC takes the opposite route, with permits granted to installations, regardless of how many processes take place there. This should avoid situations that arose with IPC, according to David Slater, director of environmental protection at the Environment Agency, which will have the task of overseeing IPPC in the UK and issuing many, if not most, of the permits. Sometimes, he claimed at a recent symposium organised by the National Society for Clean Air and Environmental Protection (NSCA), decisions over the definition of 'process' and 'installation' for IPC purposes were 'based on financial reasons, rather than ones with any connection to chemical engineering.'

Moreover, IPPC has much broader coverage than IPC, applying to virtually every industry that produces emissions: energy installations including refineries and coking works; facilities for production and processing of metals; minerals, including cement, asbestos, glass and brickworks; organic and inorganic chemical plants; waste management facilities, including incinerators and landfills; paper, pulp and textile mills; tanneries; slaughterhouses; food and dairy facilities; and pig and poultry farms.

Over 9,000 separate installations will be covered by these rules, compared with 2,000 governed by IPC. Some of these are already covered by local authority permits, such as the 3,000 landfill sites in the UK; others currently receive emission permits for water, such as the paper mills; but for many, IPPC will be their first experience of a permit-based regime.

According to David Slater, this represents a significant step forward, creating a 'one-stop shop' for environmental regulation and licensing, rather than the current confusing and often contradictory patchwork of government departments, environment agencies, local authorities and water boards.

The switch to IPPC also broadens the range of pollutants covered. While IPC sought to control harmful emissions to air, land and water, the intention of IPPC is to reduce all emissions, whether harmful or not. According to a government consultation paper (see PE Jul/Aug 1997, p5), IPPC has 'the ambitious target of regulating almost the whole environmental impact of the operation of an installation.'

IPC called upon industry to reduce emissions to air, water and land using BATNEEC - the best available technology not entailing excessive cost. Sarcastic comments abounded that some companies preferred the philosophy of CATNAP - the 'cheapest available technology narrowly avoiding prosecution'. IPPC gets rid of the NEEC portion, but defines BAT very strictly: 'best' means the most effective means to achieve a high general level of protection in the environment as a whole; 'available' refers to technologies that have been developed on a scale that would allow implementation in the relevant industrial sector 'under economically and technically viable conditions, taking into consideration the costs and advantages'; and 'techniques' includes the technology itself and the way it is designed, built, installed and maintained.

To establish the BATs for each industry, a series of technical working groups is to be established, to compile 'BAT reference documents' (BREFs). These will describe the levels of emission levels, raw materials consumption and energy usage that can be achieved through the use of the best available techniques. Member states will then be able to use these documents to calculate the economic impact of the techniques, and decide whether a proposed installation comes up to scratch.

Once BREFs have been drafted, they will be referred to an 'IPPC Information Exchange Forum'. This body, which is already in operation and has a technical bureau in Seville, consists of representatives of all member states, the employers' organisation UNICE, and a 'non-governmental organisations', the European Environment Bureau.

The first BREF was drafted last year as a pilot exercise, covering ammonia production. Working groups are currently meeting to draft BREFs for iron and steel, cement and lime, and cooling systems, while the first to be completed covers the pulp and paper industries.

All new regimes seem to breed acronyms, and IPPC is no exception. Alongside the BATs and BREFs are emission limit values (ELVs) and environmental quality standards (EQSs), both of which will influence the level of environmental protection and the choice of technologies. ELVs relate to a list of harmful substances emitted to air and water, similar to the UK's 'red list'. These will be set at both national and EU levels. These values will obviously be linked into the BAT arrangement, with part of the definition of 'best' applying to technologies that can keep these proscribed substances below the ELV.

EQSs are a little more nebulous than ELVs. In the directive itself, they are defined as 'the set of requirements that must be fulfilled at a given time by a given environment' - for example, the quality of water needed in a river to sustain life. This can be related to oxygen levels, temperatures and other factors. Installations discharging into a river would then have to stick to the EQS, without having to fulfil closely-defined emissions limits. However, when an EQS requires more stringent controls than can be achieved with BAT, the directive authorises 'supplementary conditions' to be added to permits.

The environmental and industrial communities still face a series of problems before IPPC can be implemented, Slater commented. New policies will have to be formulated to cope with the increased amount of monitoring, inspection and enforcement, while legislation must be put in place to penalise violations of the new code. Charging arrangements must be established, to replace the separate systems currently used for IPC, for waste management licensing and other regimes. These should 'represent an accurate reflection of the "polluter pays principle",' Slater believes.