Disposal to land where no public sewer is available

Disposal of effluent to land

You might be able to pump your trade effluent to the nearest public sewer.

Alternatively, you may be able to treat the effluent on site before discharging it to land using a soakaway.

What you must do

Before you discharge treated trade effluent you must have:

in Northern Ireland a discharge consent, groundwater authorisation or pollution prevention and control (PPC) permit from the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA)
in Scotland an authorisation under the Environmental Authorisations (Scotland) Regulations (EASR)

If you have an authorisation (including consent, licence, PPC permit or EASR permit) it will specify the maximum concentrations of pollutants allowed in the effluent. You will need to decide how to achieve these limits. You may be able to change your processes, or you could consider using an effluent treatment system.

See the page in this guideline: Using septic tanks and package treatment plants.

You must not discharge trade effluent to land without prior permission.

If you are setting up a new business, you should investigate effluent disposal before you choose the location of your business.

Further Information

Return to the menu of the Trade effluent – Managing liquid wastes environmental topic