Application Of Integrated Pollution Prevention And Control To Waste Water Treatment

The judgment of Nelson J was given on Friday 13 January. It has major implications for the regulation of waste water treatment works.

This was a test case brought by the Environment Agency to answer the following questions:

Do the Pollution Prevention and Control Regulations 2000 ("PPC Regulations") apply to waste water treatment activities?

Is sewage sludge "waste" under the Waste Framework Directive and, if so, is it excluded by Article 2(b) (iv) of the Directive? Article 2 (b) (iv) expressly excludes "waste waters, with the exception of waste in liquid form."

Is the treatment of sludge covered by the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control Directive ("IPPC Directive") and the PPC Regulations?

In a specific example where beer effluent and milk effluent is pre-treated at a site 700 or 800 metres from the brewery and the milk processing plant from which it originates, before being piped on for treatment at a public waste water treatment works, is this pre-treatment covered by the PPC Regulations where the brewery and the milk processing plant fall within the Regulations?

These questions were illustrated by four real life examples where the applicable law depended on these questions.

Nelson J determined these questions as follows:

Waste waters, with the exception of waste in liquid form, are included in the Waste Framework Directive, unless already covered by other legislation. The IPPC Directive includes waste management as one of the categories of industrial activities referred to in Article 1 of the Directive. The PPC Regulations therefore apply to waste water treatment activities.

Sewage sludge is "waste" under the Waste Framework Directive unless excluded by Article 2(b) (iv). The Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive treats sludge as separate and distinct from waste water. When extracted from waste water, sludge is "waste in liquid form". The exclusion under Article 2 (b) (iv) therefore does not apply and sludge remains waste within the Waste Framework Directive.

Certain parts of sludge treatment carried on at sludge processing plants were agreed by the parties to be either biological treatment or physico-chemical treatment as described in the Waste Framework Directive. The question was therefore whether the treatment results in final compounds or mixtures which are discarded by operations such as incineration on land, permanent storage, blending...

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