Environmental guidance for your business in Northern Ireland & Scotland
Wednesday, April 24, 2019
As the owner of a micro-brewery or distillery, it can often be difficult to know exactly where your environmental responsibilities lie.
Without the benefit of a dedicated staff specialising in environmental legislation, it is easy to get confused about what you should and shouldn’t do to ensure your impact on the environment is minimal.
With these difficulties in mind, NetRegs has devised this helpful guide to let you know exactly what your obligations are and to offer advice on good practice.
The brewing and distillery industries are two of the largest industrial users of water - the accepted industry standard ratio is one barrel of beer to four and a half barrels of water.
Alongside this, energy consumption, wastewater, waste by-products and air emissions remain key issues when it comes to the environmental impact of breweries and distilleries.
Although micro-brewers and distillers may not have as much of an environmental impact as larger companies do, they may need a little more help with managing their sustainability efforts.
There are a number of legal regulations that micro-brewers and distillers must adhere to. Concerning water use, specific requirements must be met relating to water quality, monitoring and risk assessment. If you want to discharge liquid waste to a public sewer at the end of the brewing or distillery process, you must have a Trade Effluent Consent form from the sewage provider.
The use of cooling towers is also regulated – if you use one, you must notify your local council in the first instance and find out if you need a pollution prevention and control (PPC) permit.
Concerning waste products, you must comply with a duty of care. This means it is vital that you produce, handle and store waste without causing harm to the environment.
Additionally, you must comply with packaging regulations if your business manufactures, supplies or handles packaging or packaging materials. This will be relevant to you if you package your own product, as many micro-brewers and distillers do.
There are so many simple steps you can take towards reducing your brewery or distillery’s environmental impact. Some are even as easy as swapping your existing lightbulbs for energy-efficient ones...
If you make the effort to increase the sustainability of your micro-brewery or distillery, you may find that it benefits not only the environment, but your finances too. Further advice can be found on the NetRegs site, including a savings calculator which can reveal how much you could be saving by investing in sustainability.
Visit NetRegs today for further guidance about the environmental obligations of the food and drink sector -make sure you also sign up to our newsletter so you don’t miss out on any environmental updates.
SEPA Special Waste Consignment Notes – updated position, The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) is now accepting special waste consignment notes (SWCNs) by email only.
DAERA Waste Policy Tracker, The Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs has published a Waste policy tracker to stay informed of waste policy developments.
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