Pollution Prevention and Control Act

The primary environmental legislation in England and Wales that relates to the release and control of waste discharges includes the 1990 Environmental Protection Act, the 1991 Water Resources Act, the 1995 Environment Act and the 1999 Pollution Prevention and Control Act. Some of the more important elements of these acts are discussed below. 

Within the UK, environmental protection is embodied in overarching statutes, e.g., the Environmental Protection Acts of 1990 and 1995, which require both an integrated approach, as embodied in the European Community Water Framework Directive, and a precautionary approach, as embodied in the 1999 Pollution Prevention and Control Act. Statutes are supported by Government Circulars and statements of policy, codes of practice, and orders and policies from agencies such as the Environment Agency and the Health and Safety Executive. 

The Pollution Prevention and Control Act 1999 introduced a new regime of control for certain industries, who were required to develop Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC). Regulations to implement the provisions of the Act were implemented in August 2000. 

Implements a new system of pollution control. Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPCj, which will eventually replace IPC and EAPC under the Environmental Protection Act 1990. 

Effluent control as part of a Direct Toxicity Assessment (DTA) approach (UKWIR, 2001), based on the recommendations of a DTA Demonstration Programme completed in 2000. Toxicity-based conditions may be implemented as part of Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) authorisations or to control emissions under the Water Resources Act. 

Regulation is an important factor in shaping trends in this area. In the developed world Clean Water Acts define the water requirements, and legislation such as the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act (SARA) in the USA and Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) in Europe ensures that contaminated land is reclaimed, and encourages companies to make use of licensed waste disposal sites. The practice of deep-well disposal is also less widely spread. 

Already there are certain restrictions for certain non-biodegradable plastic packaging materials (the US Plastics Pollution Research and Control Act of 1987, Public Law 100-220 and the Annex of the MARPOL (marine pollution) Convention - the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships which prohibit the disposal of plastics at sea, which allowed the US Navy promote the development of aquatic biodegradable plastics at sea. 

The system of Pollution Prevention and Ckintrol replaced that of Integrated Pollution Control established by the Environmental Protection Act 1990, thus bringing environmental law into the new millennium and implementing the European Directive (EC/96/61) on integrated pollution prevention and control. The new system was fully implemented in 2007. 

The Poiiution Prevention and Control Act 1999 will, by 2007, replace the Integrated Pollution Control Regulations made under Part 1 of the EPA by extending those powers to cover waste minimization, energy efficiency, noise and site restoration. 

In India, domestic and industrial wastewaters are required to meet the standards set out in the Environment (Protection) Third Amendment Rules (1993) and Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act (1974). The tolerance limits for the disposal of industrial effluents into inland surface water are given in Table 23 [69]. 

Within a year of the act s adoption, the EPA had assigned responsibility for its implementation to the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, formed in 1977 to administer the Toxic Substances Control Act, and had begun the first federally funded green chemistry programs. By 1992, the National Science Foundation had also begun funding research on "environmentally benign [chemical] syntheses and processes."... 

The Pollution Prevention Act (PPA) of 1990 was enacted to orient pollution control more in the direction of pollution prevention and in reducing pollution at the source compared with previous legislation, which focused on waste that had already been produced. The U.S. EPA delineated a multilevel hierarchical approach to waste management in the PPA. The objective of this hierarchy is to give priority first to source reduction, second to recycling and treatment, and last to waste disposal. This management hierarchy is shown in Figure 6.8. 

Toxic Substances Control Act Assistance Information Service U.S. EPA, Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics Washington, D.C. 

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