Environmental Authorisations (Scotland) Regulations 2018: ​Proposed Standard Conditions for Registration level activities
3.1. Core standard conditions for registration level industrial activities
Below are the core standard conditions that are common across all industrial activities registrations.
In addition to standard conditions, most registration level activities will also be subject to a clear site boundary marking the area of the Authorised Place on a location plan. The plan will be submitted by the applicant at the application stage. Petrol vapour recovery activities and dry cleaners are not required to have a location plan.
Core standard conditions for pollution control
- Measures must be taken to prevent, or where that is not practicable, minimise:
a. odour;
b. dust; and
c. heat emissions
from the authorised activities.
- Dust from the authorised activities, which has a significant impact on the environment, people or property, must not be emitted beyond the boundary of the Authorised Place.
- Offensive odours from the authorised activities as perceived by a SEPA officer must not be emitted beyond the boundary of the Authorised Place.
Rationale
These conditions seek to address emissions from the activities that may cause nuisance e.g. odour and dust. The conditions are consistent with those that are in existing PPC permits.
The conditions take a two-fold approach:
Step 1 – Prevent / minimise generation:
Authorised Persons will be required to prevent, or where not possible, minimise the emissions.
Step 2 – No significant impact:
Step 2 (no significant impact from nuisance) will be used as the lever to encourage compliance on the occasions where step 1 (prevent / minimise generation of nuisance) fails and there has been a significant impact on the local community.
The most common process emissions are listed in condition 1 (a) – (c). However, these will vary between activities depending on what the emissions are from that process.
Condition 1(c) requires the prevention or minimisation of heat emissions. This requirement is new and ties into one of the general aims of EASR - namely to use resources in a sustainable way. This condition will be applied to all activities where heat may be generated as part of the process. Further information on what is expected from operators regarding the control of heat emissions will be contained in supporting guidance.
Core standard conditions environmental events
- SEPA must be notified via its pollution hotline contact telephone number as soon as reasonably practicable, and in any case within 24 hours of identification of an event, of any of the following:
a. an event that has caused or could cause adverse impact to the environment or harm to human health;
b. an event that results, or could result, in an emission to the environment that is not authorised; and
c. an event that has caused a breach of a condition of this authorisation.
In this condition, the meaning of ‘event’ is as defined in the Interpretation of Terms of this authorisation.
- All measures that are reasonably practicable must be taken to stop an event and to minimise its effect on the environment.
- Within 14 days of an event a report must be submitted to SEPA detailing:
a. the reason(s) for the event;
b. the action(s) taken to stop the event and minimise the impacts; and
c. the action(s) taken to prevent the event from reoccurring.
Rationale
These conditions set out the procedures for notifying SEPA of an environmental event that has resulted, or may result in an adverse impact, an unauthorised emission, or a breach of a condition. The conditions are consistent across industrial activities and waste management activities at registration and permit level.
Core standard conditions record keeping
- All information recorded, kept or submitted to SEPA in accordance with a condition of this authorisation must be:
a. true and accurate;
b. kept for a minimum of six years; and
c. provided to SEPA upon request.
- Records must be kept of the following:
a. all monitoring results and verification of compliance with the emission limit values specified in Table 1.
- The results of the monitoring of emissions, as described in <<relevant condition number>>, must be submitted to SEPA within eight weeks of the date the monitoring took place via email to registry@sepa.org.uk.
Rationale
Condition 1 is common across all registration level industrial activities. For most activities, the only records the Authorised Person will be required to keep are of any environmental events that occur at their site. Conditions 2 and 3 apply to activities where emissions monitoring is required – the Authorised Person will be required to retain monitoring records and submit these to SEPA. For some activities, additional records are required to be kept and/or reported to SEPA – for example dry cleaners and generators of electricity aggregating to 1 MWth or more.