The Environmental Permitting Programme, launched by DEFRA in partnership with the Environment Agency and Welsh Assembly Government, seeks to combine the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) and waste management licensing systems into a common permitting and compliance system.
The new system, consisting of fewer, simpler rules and clearer guidance, will result in a simpler and more unified approach allowing industry, regulators and the public to focus more on environmental outcomes and less on how they are achieved. A simpler approach should allow businesses to more easily diversify into new areas of waste management—for example, the new system will allow a waste operator to extend their site more easily.
There is also an exemption from the need for a permit for smaller composting operations.
All of the exemptions are currently being reviewed with the aim of revising them by April 2009.