Licence

Discharging effluent or waste water (England)

You may need an environmental permit to discharge liquid effluent or waste water to surface water or the ground.

England Issued by Environment Agency

What this covers

Beauty, hairdressing, nails and spa treatmentsEnvironment conservation and wildlifeEnvironment: management and wasteEventsFood and drink: wholesale, manufacturing and productionHospitality, restaurants, bars and cateringLegal servicesPharmaceuticals and medicinal products

Why you need it

The power to require it sits in Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016, secondary legislation made under powers in other legislation.

What the Regulations carry

What our graph holds for Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016 as a whole — the Regulations behind this licence, not the licence conditions themselves.

Duties on businesses
34
Penalties
8
Exemptions
39

Duties on businesses under the Regulations

  • Incorporate burnt cereal/straw ash into soil within 24 hours sch. 3 para. 14
  • Operator must allow regulator access to inspect radioactive source premises sch. 23 para. 2
  • Operators of materials facilities must comply with permit conditions and Chapter 2 rules sch. 9 para. 3
  • You must comply with an emergency works notice about flood risk activities sch. 25 para. 7
  • Notify the regulator to surrender your environmental permit s.24
  • Comply with sector-specific permit requirements s.35

… and 28 more business duties in the same Regulations.

What happens if you get it wrong

  • Notify regulator of permit vesting after operator’s death 5 years imprisonment
  • Notify regulator before surrendering an environmental permit 5 years imprisonment
  • Comply with environmental permit revocation notice 5 years imprisonment
  • Breach of environmental permitting regulation 5 years imprisonment
  • Cause corporate environmental offence by consent, connivance or neglect 5 years imprisonment

… and 3 more penalties in the same Regulations.

Exemptions that may take you outside it

  • Combined environmental permits for multiple activities or sites — Operating multiple mobile plants, multiple facilities on the same site, or specific cross-site equipment like generators and medium combustion plants
  • Exemption for certain solid radioactive waste from permit requirements — Solid radioactive waste that meets the radionuclide concentration limits in Table 6, or is a broken/damaged tritium sealed source that …
  • Exemption for disposing of low-concentration aqueous radioactive waste — Aqueous radioactive waste not described in Table 6, total radioactivity concentration ≤ 100 Bq/ml, not intentionally diluted to meet the …
  • Exemption for disposing of low-volume aqueous radioactive waste — Annual total radioactivity of the waste does not exceed the Table 6 limit, waste is disposed to a relevant sewer …
  • Exemption for Kr-85 gaseous radioactive waste disposal — Waste contains only Kr-85, and either (a) total radioactivity disposed per year does not exceed 10^11 Bq and comply with …

… and 34 more exemptions in the same Regulations.

Read our full dossier on Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016

Who issues it

This one does not go to your council. It is issued by Environment Agency.

Where to apply

Duty, penalty and exemption labels are Guvnor’s analysis of the enabling instrument, not the instrument itself. Fees, forms and conditions are set by the issuing authority — always check the linked source.