A significant body of legislation affects the chemical and pharamaceutical sector - key items currently include:
REACH
The REACH Regulation on the management and control of chemicals came into force on 1 June 2007. One of the main elements of REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals) is registration of substances, which obliges manufacturers and importers of substances to provide a defined set of information, in the form of a registration dossier, to the European Chemicals Agency.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE)
is the UK Competent Authority for the REACH Regulation. There is a helpdesk to support and advise UK businesses. Phone 0845 408 9575 or email: ukreachca@hse.gsi.gov.uk.
Hazardous waste
The introduction in July 2005 of the Hazardous Waste Regulations (HWR) in England and Wales and similar legislation in Scotland and Northern Ireland has required industry to examine carefully the management and disposal of its site waste - especially as certain categories of waste are newly defined as hazardous. The regulations apply to a large section of the chemical and pharmaceutical sector in the UK.
Through the List of Wastes Regulations 2005, the European Commission lists all wastes, grouped according to generic industry or process, and classifies hazardous waste according to strictly defined criteria.
Both landfill and alternative treatment technologies for hazardous waste (eg incineration) are relatively high in terms of disposal costs.
Packaging
If your business handles more than 50 tonnes of packaging in a year and has a turnover of more than £2 million, you must comply with the Producer Responsibility Obligations. These obligations require you to:
- register with your environmental regulator;
- recycle and recover certain amounts of packaging waste.
If your business produces packed products, or places packaging or packaged goods on the market, you must comply with the Essential Requirements Regulations. These regulations require you to:
- minimise the packaging used;
- ensure packaging can be re-used or recycled;
- ensure packaging does not contain high levels of certain heavy metals.
Landfill
In England, Northern Ireland and Wales, all liquid wastes were banned from landfill from 30 October 2007. In Scotland, liquid wastes are usually banned from landfill under a site’s Pollution Prevention and Control (PPC) permit. All other waste must be pre-treated before being sent for landfill, except for inert waste that cannot be treated and any other waste for which treatment would not reduce its quantity or its hazard to human health and the environment. However, there are very few instances when these exceptions apply.
Solvent Emissions Directive / Solvent Emissions Regulations (SER) 2004
Emissions of solvents from certain industrial activities, including chemical and pharmaceutical manufacturing processes, are regulated under these legilations and require operators to implement a solvent management plan and to take a solvent reduction approach to meet emission concentration limits or in some cases, mass emission limits.
The SED sets minimum technical standards concerning the use of organic solvents and solvent-containing materials by industry, including substitution requirements for high risk-phrase solvents. In some instances, these standards may be superseded by the underlying requirement for operators to apply Best Available Techniques for Pollution Prevention and Control compliance
Pollution Prevention and Control (PPC)
Many chemical and pharmaceutical companies are regulated under the Pollution Prevention and Control (PPC) regime, which implements the requirements of the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) Directive in the UK. Fundamental to IPPC is the requirement that each site must operate according to predefined Best Available Techniques (BAT), the details of which are given in a BAT Reference (BREF) document for its industry or sector, published by the European IPPC Bureau.
The use of BAT helps to define what is considered as operational best practice across the industries. It also introduces the concept of ‘benchmarking’.
If a site is considered to be operating inefficiently (according to the industry standard ‘benchmark’) then it may be required, as part of an Environmental Regulator Controlled Improvement Plan, to implement specific process improvements to rectify the situation.
For more information on the above legislation, visit the UK Environmental Regulators’ Netregs, or their specific Chemicals section.
Resource efficiency can enable you to comply with environmental legislation.
To find out what practical steps you can take to make more of your resources, and comply with legislation, download a free publication for the chemical sector.