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3.2.1 Objectives and Targets
The aims and objectives of IPC are (under Part I of EPA 1990) to:
- Prevent or minimise the release of certain prescribed harmful substances into the environment
and to render harmless any other substances, which are released.
- Develop an approach to pollution control that takes into account the effect of discharges from
industrial processes on the environment as a whole.
IPC does not simply refer to the regulation of industrial processes that release substances into more
than one environmental medium. Some industrial processes prescribed for IPC could release substances
into only one environmental medium. It is the prescribed processes that are, more often than not,
the most hazardous and are termed Part A processes:
- Those processes that give rise to significant amounts of special waste.
- Those that emit substances to sewers or controlled waters with highly noxious effects.
- Those processes regulated for air emissions previously under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.
Part I of the Act also includes a system of air control, mainly from less hazardous and less
complicated industrial processes; Local Air Pollution Control (LAPC), which are regulated by
local authorities for their emissions to air. Aqueous discharges or any hazardous wastes generated
by processes covered by the LAPC regime are subject to Environment Agency control. The control that
the local authorities have over air pollution is as powerful as that exercised by the Environment
Agency for the other, more polluting and complicated processes under IPC.
The operator of a prescribed process for IPC has a duty of care to ensure that the release of prescribed
substances into the environment are prevented, or at the very least, minimised. using the best available
techniques not entailing excessive cost. (BATNEEC).
Where BATNEEC is applied to processes that could release prescribed substances into more than one
environmental medium, (Schedule processes) operators are charged with a duty to
Concentrate upon the best practicable environmental option. (BPEO)
EPA 1990 does not take account of BATNEEC.
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