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Leachate Treatment News

17 November 2003

Agency Commissions Enviros to Provide BAT Guidance for Leachate Treatment

The Environment Agency has recently commissioned Enviros Consulting Limited to produce technical guidance that will set out the detailed requirements of Best Available Techniques (BAT) for leachate treatment under IPPC.

The contract will run until March 2004, and may be extended beyond this date. Outputs will be disseminated as part of the Agency's plan for implementation of IPPC, and will form guidance for the waste management industry and the Environment Agency.

Under the Pollution Prevention and Control Regulations 2000 (SI 2000/1973) operators of many leachate treatment plants will be subjected to regulation under PPC. This will require operators of existing installations in this sector to apply for new integrated PPC permits. Applicants must set out how they are proposing to operate, what emissions and effects are likely as a result of their proposals, and how they will apply Best Available Techniques. These PPC Permit applications represent a substantial challenge for both Industry and the Agency in terms of the resources that will be needed to make and determine them. The Agency therefore intends to produce succinct technical guidance, that complies with the technical and regulatory principles set out in the PPC Regulations, and is presented in a clear and unambiguous fashion, appropriate to the intended audience of operators and regulators.

Specific objectives of the project are:

• To review the requirements of the EU Landfill Directive (LFD), and Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) Directive, for the treatment of hazardous and non-hazardous leachates.
• Taking account of the above legislative requirements, in particular the requirement to use Best Available Techniques for the treatment of leachate (as set out within the IPPC Directive), to liaise with the Agency and produce guidance that sets out the detailed requirements of BAT for leachate treatment under IPPC.
• Taking account of the above legislative requirements and working closely with the Agency, to produce guidance to enable operators of leachate treatment plants to submit a PPC application for such plants within the 'relevant period'.

The report will provide operators and regulators with "regulatory certainty" through tailored guidance that will address BAT requirements for leachate treatment. It will be consistent with the template for IPPC Technical Guidance that the Agency has developed, which is coordinated with the permit application process, in order to provide a practical level of information for the permit application.

This guidance is arranged to:

• Provide a clear structure and methodology which operators making an application should follow, to ensure that all aspects of the PPC regulations and other relevant regulations have been addressed, which should help operators to make a satisfactory application;
• Minimise the effort by both operator and regulator in the permitting of an installation, by use of clear indicative standards, and improve the consistency of applications by ensuring that all relevant issues are addressed;
• Increase the transparency of the permitting process by having a structure in which the operators response to each issue, and any departures from the standards can be seen clearly;
• Improve consistency of regulation across installations and sectors, by facilitating the comparison of applications.

Development of the guidance will include a twelve week consultation phase, during which views will be sought from the waste industry. The Agency and Enviros will also be pleased to receive comments on the proposed project, and these should be addressed to either:

12 November 2003

Enviros contributes to Cape Town 'Cleanest Metropole' Award

Enviros has helped Cape Town win the award for 'Cleanest Metropole in South Africa'. Our landfill and leachate team have been working with the City of Cape Town to develop South Africa's first leachate treatment plant. The contribution of the project towards winning the award was recognised in the City's press release.

"The City of Cape Town has recently commissioned a leachate treatment plant at their Vissershok landfill site. This treatment plant, the first such facility in Africa, has been built at a cost of R6 million and can treat some 80 Kl of leachate per day. The treated effluent will be used for on site dust control and initial estimates are that it will result in a saving to the City of approximately R0.8 million per annum....The City of Cape Town Council sincerely thanks all the residents, communities and partners who have joined hands in achieving a cleaner environment."

Vissershok Leachate Treatment Plant and Cape Town's Table Mountain

16 October, 2003

Enviros experts present eight papers at International Waste Management and Landfill Symposium

Experts from Enviros were selected to present a wide range of papers at the prestigious 9th International Symposium in Sardinia this October.

(Click here to read Howard Robinson’s review of this event.)

Working with our clients, authors including Howard Robinson, Mark Kelly, Jo Ramsay, Bob Couth, Jonathan Davies, Andrew Howe, Andrew MacArthur, Peter Young, Martin Carville, Steve Last and Jonty Olufsen have written papers on: remediation of leachate problems; performance of passive biofilters for landfill gas; effects of carbonation on leachate quality from MSW incinerator residues; landfill financing and contracts; leachate from foot and mouth mass burial sites; contaminant removal by biological leachate treatment systems; leachate quality after the landfill directive; and leachate from waste arising from remediation of former steelworks.

The full range of papers, workshops and posters given are:

H. Robinson, S. Farrow, S. Last and D. Jones - Remediation of Leachate Problems at Arpley Landfill Site, Warrington, Cheshire, UK

M. Kelly, B. Latham and J. Ramsay - The Performance of Passive - Biofilter Landfill Gas Vents at Ballymacvea Landfill, Ballymena, Northern Ireland

B.D. Bone, K. Knox, A. Picken and H.D. Robinson - The Effect of Carbonation on Leachate Quality from Landfilled Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) Incinerator Residues

B. Couth, J. Davies, A. Howe - Landfill Financing and Contracts

A.J. MacArthur, J. C. Milne and P.J. Young - Leachate Characteristics Arising From the Foot and Mouth Mass Burial Site in Scotland

M.S. Carville, S.D. Last and J. Olufsen - A Characterisation of Contaminant Removal Achieved by Biological Leachate Treatment Systems

B.D. Bone, K. Knox, A. Picken and H.D. Robinson - Leachate Quality from UK Landfills after Implementation of the LFD: Hazardous Wastes

A.J. MacArthur and P. J. Young - Leachate Characteristics of Waste Arising From the Land Remediation of a Former Steelworks

For full details of the symposium see www.sardiniasymposium.it

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