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Brief Fact Sheets
The Environmental Liability Directive (2004/35/EC)
- Addresses damage that has a “significant adverse effect” on land, water and biodiversity;
- Intended to implement the “polluter pays” principle, but is based on a preventative approach in the first instance;
- Does not operate retrospectively (c.f. Part IIA Environmental Protection Act 1990) or if more than 30 years has elapsed since the event giving rise to the damage;
- Imposes strict (i.e. no fault) liability for damage to land, water and biodiversity arising from specified polluting activities (e.g. those subject - in the UK - to Part A1 PPC permitting);
- Damage to biodiversity arising from non-specified activities (e.g. in the UK - Part B regulated activities) arises on the basis of fault or negligence;
- Exclusions from liability under the Directive include damage to persons and property and damage arising from diffuse pollution;
- Remediation of damage to waters and biodiversity is to be achieved via a combination of primary, compensatory and complementary measures (as appropriate);
- Compensatory remediation is non-monetary and designed to make up for the length of time the damaged resource is unable to perform its pre-damage function;
- Complementary remediation is remediation that can be carried out either at the site of the damage or elsewhere to make up for the inability to remediate the site to its pre-damaged condition;
- Remediation of land is designed to remove any significant risk of adverse effects of human health, taking account of actual or planned future use;
- Permit and state-of-the-art defences may be introduced at a national level;
- The Directive should have been fully transposed into national law and implemented by 30 April 2007.
WEEE in the UK
- 2 Jan 07 – main UK WEEE regulations in force;
- To be EEE, the equipment must (a) depend on electric currents or electromagnetic fields to work properly, or generate, transfer and measure such currents or fields; (b) fall within one of the ten categories in a Schedule to the Regulations (e.g. lighting equipment, toys, leisure and sports equipment); (c) and be designed for use with </= 1,000 V (ac) or 1,500 V (dc);
- 15 Mar 07 – obligated producers must have joined an approved compliance scheme;
- 1 Apr 07 – producers must mark any EEE put on the market with the crossed-out wheely-bin symbol and mark their EEE with a producer ID mark and date mark;
- 1 Jul 07 – distributors must ensure household WEEE can be returned to them free of charge and distributors must in turn be able to return the WEEE to a scheme that has been approved by the Environment Agency/ SEPA/ NI Department for the Environment for the treatment, recovery and environmentally sound disposal of WEEE;
- 1 Jul to 31 Dec 07 – first compliance period during which producers have to finance the collection, treatment, recovery and environmentally sound disposal of WEEE from private households. Compliance periods are annual thereafter;
- Regulation 8(3) sets out a formula by which to calculate the amount of WEEE each producer is responsible for;
- Scheme operators must ensure the WEEE they collect on behalf of their members is treated using best available treatment, recovery and recycling techniques and by appropriately authorised treatment facilities;
- Scheme operators must ensure that at the end of each compliance period WEEE category specific recovery, reuse and recycling targets are met;
- Scheme operators are required to provide information and compliance-related reports to the regulator for each compliance period;
- Broadly speaking, producers have to finance the collection and treatment etc. of non-household WEEE unless they have made alternative arrangements with the final end-user;
- Special provisions apply to producers who supply WEEE outside of the UK by means of distance selling.
Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals Regulation (1907/2006)
- The REACH Regulation is the longest–ever single piece of EC legislation;
- Briefly, before regulated chemicals can be placed on the market in quantities of 1 tonne or more per annum, the producer or importer must have registered the chemical concerned with the new Helsinki-based European Chemicals Agency;
- Registration for existing chemical substances that have been pre-registered will proceed in a phased manner, the first deadline being 1 December 2010 for chemicals produced in the largest quantities and those which are likely to be the most harmful;
- To encourage data sharing for registration purposes through the formation of Substance Information Exchange Fora, there is a six-month pre-registration stage, ending 1 December 2008, for existing phase-in substances;
- Under the new regime, producers will be responsible for testing their chemicals, rather than competent authorities;
- Downstream users of chemicals will need to check on the security of their raw material supplies. Generally, they will want to ensure their suppliers are aware of the end uses to which their chemicals are put to ensure the registration of the chemical is sufficiently broad (unless, for example, confidentiality requirements dictate otherwise);
- The most dangerous chemicals will, unless prohibited altogether, require a use-specific authorisation before they can be put on the market. Socio-economic justification must be provided for continuining to make the chemical available. Otherwise, the producer must provide an R&D plan for developing safer alternatives. “Green chemistry” will play an important role in this respect. See: http://www.york.ac.uk/res/gcg/index.htm
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