Environmental guidance for your business in Northern Ireland & Scotland
Reducing and treating your liquid waste can lower your trade effluent bills. You can cut costs by:
To reduce costs you could consider:
The cost of discharging trade effluent to a sewer is based on the volume discharged and the concentration of contaminants, so it could be worth installing some form of preliminary treatment system. For example, a simple sedimentation tank could remove a large percentage of the suspended solids in the effluent.
You must comply with your duty of care responsibilities when you dispose of waste from an effluent treatment system. This means you must ensure your waste is handled, recovered and disposed of correctly.
Duty of care - your waste responsibilities
You need to manage and regularly maintain treatment systems to ensure that they are working correctly
Some systems are so effective that you might be able to recover and reuse the effluent on site, saving more water and discharge costs. You may also be able to recover raw materials that could be reused.
Make sure that your staff record the effluents being discharged accurately, particularly if they are responsible for emptying and discharging effluents from specific processes.
If any new processes are added, this will add to the volume and contaminants being discharged. Check the effluent produced to ensure that your consent is still valid.
Have a site plan that identifies all access and entry points to the sewerage system. Workers responsible for discharging effluents should be made aware that the access and entry points are specifically for trade effluents only.
Make sure that any surface water drains cannot be mistaken for drains that lead to the sewer.
The Northern Ireland Environment Agency has published a short guide to the duty of care responsibilities including advice and information for waste producers, carriers and those accepting, storing and treating waste.
https://www.daera-ni.gov.uk/publications/waste-duty-care-responsibilities
Any person intending to alter the use or management of areas of uncultivated or semi-natural land must obtain prior approval from the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA).
Read more on the DAERA website
The NetRegs team at SEPA, in partnership with The Northern Ireland Environment Agency, Natural Resources Wales and a number of industry bodies have produced 9 new GPPs to replace out of date PPGs. More are coming! Check the available topics
New guidance for Start-ups, charities and community projects
http://www.netregs.org.uk/environmental-topics/environmental-management/first-steps-guidance-for-new-starts-projects-and-charities/
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