In England, Acts of Parliament are made which give the various government departments authority to make the laws and regulations that rule the country.
Then there is the EU that makes directives which England will incorporate within the regulations that it makes, and a number of these address environmental issues for the whole of Europe and beyond. The REACH regulations will affect 20,000 chemicals currently used in homes and businesses alike across Europe, and every world supplier to Europe will comply.
In addition to this, there are meetings held by countries who commit to global programmes of improvement such as the Montreal Protocol (when they agreed to phase out Ozone depleting substances) and the Kyoto Protocol (when they agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions).
Because of the Montreal protocol, the Company was forced to change the solvents in the main degreaser and because of the Kyoto protocol you can only buy very high efficiency central heating boilers for your home.
Environmental Legislation affects everyone, if not at home, then certainly at work and the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (as amended) led to numerous regulations being made that are still in force today. Below are just some of these regulations and what they mean in practice.
Environmental Protection (Duty of Care) Regulations 1991 – as amended by Environmental Protection (Duty of Care) (England) Regulations 2003, require that for any waste we send off site we ensure that:-
We notify the Environment Agency before shipment.
We check that it is to be taken to a site that is licensed to receive that type of waste.
We check that the carrier is licensed to carry that waste.
And, once in a while, we follow the waste to the dump, just to be sure, as failure to comply with the legal requirements can result in significant fines (£20,000).
If any waste is “fly tipped” and can be traced back to the site that produced it (e.g. by headed paper or labels in the waste), then not only fines can be applied, the costs of removing the waste and any other waste fly tipped by others can then become your responsibility.
Waste Management Licensing Regulations 1994/S11056 - as amended in 1995/ 1996/ 1997/ 1998/ 2002/ 2003/ 2005/ 2006/ and will be amended later this year, require a thorough and complete management system for storing the liquid wastes in the tanks behind the Finishing department.
It requires a full assessment of the potential for pollution to ensure you take all necessary precaution, and at least one person has to hold a Vocational Qualification (Level 4) to prove there is someone of sufficient competence to manage the waste.
To make sure, the Environment Agency will routinely inspect records and the site, and then award a score to show how well you control your wastes which they also publish on their website.
So if you want to know who the potential polluters are near you, check the “What’s in my backyard” section on the Agency website.
There are also the Hazardous Waste regulations 2005, List of Wastes (England) 2005/ (as amended), then the Landfill Regulations 2002/ 2004/ 2005/ which require pre-treatment of ordinary waste.
In fact there are 9 sets of regulations for Waste alone.
Pollution Prevention and Control Regs 2000 as amended in 2001/ 2002/ 2003/ 2004/ 2006/ 2007/ and also later in 2008. This set of regulations covers all types of pollution, but mainly for us, it’s about Noise and Fumes or Smoke.
Firstly, we are not permitted to emit “dark” smoke from anywhere on site and provided boilers are regularly serviced, this is not a problem and site noise is extremely well controlled but will always be a potential problem for any company with domestic dwellings on the other side of the fence.
All of us are well aware of noise, especially at night or in the early hours, just before your alarm clock goes off and especially when the next door neighbour forgets to disarm his car alarm when he unlocks it ready for an early start!
We have to make sure that only equipment that must be left running at night, such as fume extractors, is left on and nothing is too noisy during the day when everyone is busy. This means that nothing at night should be noisier than a quiet conversation between two people and by day not more than a loud conversation!
There are 8 sets of regulations in this section