Environmental controls on cement and lime kilns

The Environment Agency is to improve environmental controls on cement and lime kilns in England and Wales, to decide which fuels should be allowed, while protecting public health and the environment

The Environment Agency is to improve environmental controls on cement and lime kilns in England and Wales.

The proposals, drawn up after an extensive round of consultation with the public and the industry over protection of health and the environment, went before the Board of the Environment Agency this week.

The Environment Agency believes the new measures will reinforce our framework for controlling the practice of substituting waste streams for fossil fuels, thereby providing robust protection of public health and the environment, but also enabling wider environmental benefits to be realised in the form of lower emissions of key air pollutants such as oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and reduction in the use of fossil fuels.

Chief Executive of the Environment Agency Barbara Young said: "We have consulted extensively and listened very carefully to what people have had to say about substitute fuel burning in cement and lime kilns.

We believe our proposals provide effective protection of public health and the environment, and will ensure there are mechanisms in place to keep local communities well-informed about emissions, and engaged with the regulatory decision-making process where plant operators propose substituting conventional fuels or propose significant changes to substitute fuel use.

"With effective measures in place, we can then realise the environmental benefits of reducing fossil fuel use, cutting emissions of key air pollutants and reducing the volume of waste which has to be disposed of in an environmentally unfavourable way, such as landfill".

Substitution of fossil fuels with waste streams is a practice common across Europe and one which is increasingly being proposed by the cement and lime manufacturing industry in the UK.

Substitute fuels currently in use, in trials or proposed in England and Wales include tyres, liquid substitute fuels, sewage sludge and meat and bone meal.

The new measures being put before the Environment Agency Board will require kiln operators to do the following.

* justify the environmental benefits of the waste streams they are increasingly seeking to substitute for conventional fossil fuels.

* identify what is in the fuels they propose to burn, so that the environmental and health impacts can be considered and to prevent wastes which could more usefully be recycled or re-used being considered for fuels or elements of fuel blends.

* document and make the information publicly available.

* engage in open consultation with local communities about proposals to burn substitute fuels and about any significant proposed changes to substitute fuel burning.

* meet revised emissions monitoring and reporting requirements designed to reflect the materials in the fuel(s) being used.

The new measures will be implemented by the Environment Agency through a revised version of its Substitute Fuels Protocol, which sets out the principles and procedures the Agency follows in handling all applications from cement and lime makers to burn substitute fuels.

The revised Substitute Fuels Protocol will apply from 1 January 2005.

Revision of the Substitute Fuels Protocol is also consistent with new EU legislation (the Waste Incineration Directive) and European Court of Justice judgments.

The Board of the Environment Agency meets regularly in public.

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