Environmental guidance for your business in Northern Ireland & Scotland

Does your waste or sewage business require a PPC permit?

Your business may require a pollution prevention and control (PPC) permit from your environmental regulator or local council. For example, you will need a permit if your business has a production capacity above a certain level or if you use certain hazardous substances.

If your business is an installation or mobile plant you will need a pollution prevention and control (PPC) permit from your environmental regulator.

An installation is a stationary technical unit, such as a self-contained building, permanent structure or fixed plant, used for listed activities.

A mobile plant is plant that can be moved and is used for listed activities.

Listed activities

These are industrial, waste or intensive farming activities that have an impact on the environment and are listed in the PPC regulations. They are split into categories:

Part A, B and C in Northern Ireland
Part A and B in Scotland

Listed activities that might be carried out by waste or sewage businesses include:

	Permit Categories
Listed activity	Northern Ireland	Scotland
Incinerating hazardous waste in an incineration plant (this does not apply to exempt hazardous waste incineration plant in Scotland)	Part A	Part A
Incinerating non-hazardous waste in an incineration plant with a capacity of 1 tonne or more per hour	Part A	Part A
Landfill sites that receive more than 10 tonnes of waste per day or have a total capacity of more than 25,000 tonnes (this does not apply to landfills that take only inert waste)	Part A	Part A
Disposing of hazardous waste or waste oils in a facility with a capacity of more than 10 tonnes per day (this does not apply to disposal by incineration or landfill)	Part A	Part A
Disposing of non-hazardous waste in a facility with a capacity of more than 50 tonnes per day by biological or physico-chemical treatment	Part A	Part A
Recovering oil or organic solvents by distillation	Part A	Part A
Incinerating non-hazardous waste in an incineration plant with a capacity of less than 1 tonne per hour (this does not apply to exempt waste incineration plant in Scotland)	Part C	Part B
Cremating human remains	Part C	Part B

What you must do

If your installation or mobile plant carries out listed activities you will need a permit from your environmental regulator.

Permits and regulators for listed activities

Activity category	Northern Ireland	Scotland
Part A	PPC permit regulated by the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA)	PPC permit regulated by SEPA
Part B	PPC permit regulated the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA)	PPC permit regulated by SEPA
Part C	PPC permit regulated by local council	N/A

Contact your environmental regulator

You should contact your environmental regulator or local council for further information about listed activities. NetRegs does not provide detailed guidance on Part A activities.

If you are unsure whether you are affected by PPC, contact your environmental regulator or local council.

Contact your environmental regulator

Contact your local council

How to apply for a permit

NIEA: Apply online

SEPA: Application forms

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Permits

NIEA - Apply online

SEPA - Application forms