Control and monitor air emissions

Industrial activities that release pollutants to air are regulated through environmental permits. The permit, not the law in the abstract, is what you comply with day to day: it sets the emission limits, the monitoring you must carry out and what you report to your regulator.

Find out which regulator issues your permit

Schedule 1 to the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016 lists the regulated activities and sorts them into three tiers. The tier decides who regulates you and how much the permit covers.

• Part A(1) activities are the highest-impact industrial processes, such as refineries, manufacturing sites, process industries and waste incineration. The Environment Agency regulates them and the permit covers emissions to air, water and land.
• Part A(2) activities are medium-scale, such as metal works, glass and ceramics manufacture and non-hazardous waste incineration. Your local authority regulates them and the permit covers air, water and land.
• Part B activities cause emissions to air only. Your local authority regulates them. Examples are respraying road vehicles, dry cleaning, unloading petrol at petrol stations, printing, wood coating, cement and lime processes, and crematoria.

Where the medium combustion plant or specified generator rules apply, the Environment Agency regulates the plant, including some combustion and wood incineration activities that would otherwise be Part B.

Apply for the permit

Apply to the Environment Agency for Part A(1), and to your local authority's environmental health team for Part A(2) and Part B. You pay a fee when you apply and a subsistence charge each year you hold the permit.

For Part A(1) you can use a standard rules permit if your activity fits its description. Otherwise you need a bespoke permit. In your application you must state how you will follow each best available technique (BAT) that applies to your activity, or propose an alternative. For Part B and Part A(2), the local authority sets conditions using the Defra process guidance note for your activity.

The regulator has 3 months to decide, or 4 months where the application has to be publicised for comment, unless you agree a longer period. If it has not decided in time, you can give it a notice and treat the application as refused, which opens the way to an appeal.

Meet your emission limits

Your permit sets emission limit values for the pollutants your activity releases, such as dust, oxides of nitrogen, sulphur dioxide and volatile organic compounds. They are legal conditions. For Part A(1) the limits come from the BAT conclusions for your sector, and you must comply unless the Environment Agency agrees an alternative technique. For Part B they come from the process guidance note.

Some emissions, such as dust and fumes, have no numerical limit but must still be controlled. The regulator can ask for an emissions management plan showing how.

If raw emissions would exceed your limits, you need abatement such as bag filters, scrubbers, activated carbon or oxidisers, and you must keep it working. If it fails, follow the notification and shutdown conditions in your permit.

Monitor your emissions

Your permit specifies the measurement method, how often to monitor and how to report. There are two approaches. Periodic monitoring takes samples at intervals, for example every 3 months, and measures them on site or in a laboratory. Continuous emission monitoring systems (CEMS) measure automatically all the time.

The Environment Agency's Monitoring Certification Scheme (MCERTS) sets the quality requirements. In practice you need MCERTS-certified instruments, MCERTS-certified personnel carrying out stack tests, and laboratories accredited to the MCERTS performance standard for analysing the samples. CEMS must also meet EN 14181, which covers their calibration and ongoing quality assurance.

Report and keep records

Submit monitoring results and tell the regulator about breaches, equipment failures and changes to plant or process as your permit requires. Keep monitoring reports, operating records and abatement maintenance logs where you can produce them for an inspector.

Inspections and enforcement

Inspectors can enter your premises at any reasonable time, take samples and measurements, and require you to provide information. Obstructing them, or failing without reasonable excuse to give them information or facilities, is a criminal offence.

If you breach a condition, or are likely to, the regulator can serve an enforcement notice setting out the steps and the deadline. If your site is causing or likely to cause serious pollution, it can serve a suspension notice. It can also revoke the permit.