§ Mr. CousinsTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will place in the Library the annual approved discharge limit and the annual actual known discharge limit of dioxins from the Byker Heat Station, Newcastle for each year since 1985. [125139]
§ Mr. Hill[holding answer 12 June 2000]The plant was not authorised under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 until March 1993 and annual returns were not required by the authorisation until March 1994.
The Annual Mass Emission Limit for dioxins has remained at 30g since that first authorisation. The actual reported discharges of dioxins against this limit were:
- April 1993-March 1994: 0.147g
- April 1994-March 1995: 0.1g
- April 1995-March 1996: 0.117g
- April 1996-March 1997: 0.131g
- January 1997-December 1998: 0.0955g
- January 1999-December 1999: 0.016g
The Annual Mass Emission Limit appears higher than needed. However, in practice this limit is not used for day to day regulation of the authorised process by the Environment Agency. In line with current Agency guidance (S2 5.01 on Waste Incineration), the process is controlled and limited by reference to the concentration of dioxins released to the air. The authorisation sets an emission concentration of 1.0 ng/m3 TEQ (Toxic Equivalent), which is a far tighter control parameter than is implied by the 30g mass limit. Tests on the plant in the years 1994 to 1999 have shown concentrations between 0.22 and 0.76 ng/m3.
The Environment Agency is considering the introduction of a 0.1 ng/m3 limit which could be considered to be BATNEEC (Best Available Technique Not Entailing Excessive Cost) for existing incinerators, and could therefore be achieved under existing legislation. The Environment Agency also advise that they will in future authorisations for industrial plant reduce the limit in the authorisation to 0.1ng/m3, in line with the proposed EC Waste Incineration Directive and their current guidance on new plant.