ABPR

Animal By Products Regulations

The Animal By Products Regulations 1774/2002 came into force in 2003 and covers the use/disposal of any wastes that contain meat or animal by products. The Animal By-Products (Wales) Regulations (ABPR) 2006 is the enforcing legislation in Wales. They contain the national standards for AD plants as well as powers for inspectors, approval controls and appeals procedures.

Animal by products (ABP) are classified into three categories:

Category 1 – Highest risk materials and international catering waste. This material cannot be treated using anaerobic digestion and needs to be incinerated or rendered

Category 2 – High risk animal by products. This material cannot be treated using anaerobic digestion unless it has been pressure cooked to the European Standard (133°C/3 bar/20 minutes). However, although the following materials are listed as category 2 material they can be used in AD plants without ABP approval – Manure, Digestive Tract Content, Milk and Colostrum

Category 3 – Low risk animal by products. This material can be treated via a number of routes including anaerobic digestion. This material includes raw meat intended for human consumption, waste from food manufacturers and retailers, eggs, and other by products that do not show signs of transmissible disease. All UK derived catering waste (i.e. from domestic and commercial kitchens) where meat and non meat fractions are combined is also covered as Category 3 material

In order to treat Category 3 material an AD facility must be approved and incorporate a number of criteria. The following requirements are for anaerobic digestion facilities treating ABP to meet the Animal Health rules, other agencies such as the Environment agency are likely to have additional requirements and will need to be checked.

1. Criteria relating to particle size, time and temperature as per the Table below:

Closed Reactor Treatment Technology	National ABP Regulations, option for catering waste only	National ABP Regulations option for catering waste only	EU ABP Regulation 1774/2002
Maximum Particle Size	50 mm	60 mm	12 mm
Minimum Temperature	57 ºC	70 ºC	70 ºC
Minimum Time Spent at the Minimum Temperature	5 hours	1 hour	1 hour
Additional Requirements	Followed by storage for at least 18 days if digestate is made from catering waste that incuded meat	Followed by storage for at least 18 days if digestate is made from catering waste that incuded meat	No post treatment minimum storage time specified

2. Treat materials immediately without undue delay
3. Have cleanable and lockable reception areas
4. A non-bypass pasteurisation stage must be included within the plant, unless the time and temperature requirement can be met within the anaerobic digestion reactor
5. Incorporate procedures based on Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) in order to identify and evaluate critical control points
6. Operate strict hygiene conditions including for vehicle movement and physical separation of clean and dirty areas or any sensitive adjacent land uses
7. Record and demonstrate pathogen kill procedures, pest control measures, cleaning procedures have hygiene inspections documented
8. Monitor, sample, record and check Critical Control Points
9. Ensure that all equipment is in good working order and that all measurement equipment is calibrated every three months
10. Carry out microbiological sampling

The Welsh Regulations state that an AD plant handling ABP material cannot be located on the same premises as livestock. This means that there needs to be a complete separation between the AD plant and the farm. A separate area has to be identified with separate access arrangements and no means of cross contamination.

The precise requirements under the ABPR are site specific and therefore early discussions with the Animal Health (the Government's executive agency primarily responsible for ensuring that farmed animals in Great Britain are healthy, disease-free and well looked after) who are responsible for the issue of Animal By Product Approval is essential.

Contact details for local Animal Health offices can be found at: http://www.defra.gov.uk/animalhealth/about-us/contact-us/search/listall.asp. In Wales there are 3 Animal Health offices (the Carmarthen office also deals with Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire regions; the Cardiff office also deals with the Swansea and centre and south Powys regions; the Caernarfon office deals with North Powys and all other areas in Wales).

Local Authorities actually enforce the ABP Regulations and carry out risk assessed compliance visits.

If the plant is approved under the ABPR, the digestate can be spread on land as regulated by the ABPR. Where that land is pasture (land that is intended to be used for grazing or cropping for animal feeding stuffs), livestock must not be allowed access to land to which compost or digestion residues have been applied for the following minimum time periods: (a) in the case of pigs, eight weeks; (b) in the case of other farmed animals, three weeks. Similarly, animals must also not be fed with anything cropped from land to which compost or digestion residues have been applied, for the same time periods (eight weeks for pigs, three weeks for other farmed animals). You should also consult the requirements for land spreading of digestate under the Environmental Permitting Regulations and the PAS 110.

In brief here is the ABPR Approval Application Process

1. Application made by site operator (or future site operator) to Animal Health UK. Of particular importance is the HACCP plan.
2. Animal Health undertake a desk assessment (and in some cases a site visit) based on the information provided in the application. This will lead to either a Yes, No or further advice to achieve compliance.
3. If ‘Yes’ the plant will be formally inspected by Animal Health. The plant must be operational but still cannot receive ABP material. It must be commissioned using material that mimics ABP.Following this a temporary approval is likely to be issued at which point the plant can receive ABP material. Operators may wish to consider commissioning their plant ahead of ABP approval but for non ABP material.
4. From this point all material (digestate) generated by the plant must be monitored and sampled (usually taking around 3 months)
5. Once Animal Health are satisfied that the plant is operating appropriately (on the basis of the monitoring results) the material can be released from site
6. Animal Health then undertake a full review of the plant and procedures
7. If satisfied, a full approval will be granted at this point
8. Under the full approval, not all batches of outputs need to be monitored
9. Any failures in complying with approval conditions are passed to the Local Authority for enforcement action

Environmental Permitting

The Environmental Permitting Regulations were introduced in 2008 and unify the former Waste Management Licenses and Pollution Prevention and Control (PPC) regimes. The regulating body for Environmental Permits is the Environment Agency (EA) whose primary role is the protection of the environment and human health. There are three primary options available to the EA with regard to permitting of AD plants:

An exemption from Permitting – Exemptions are set out in the legislation; for anaerobic digestion see paragraph 12 of Schedule 3 of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2007. A review of the exemptions is currently taking place and Anaerobic Digestion will be covered by two new exemptions under paragraphs T24 and T25 of The Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2009. Exemption T24 is available from April 2010. Further information is available on the Environment Agency website via the following link:  T24 Exemption – Small AD

Standard Permits – for operations that have been assessed to meet generic risk assessments (GRA) based on operation rather than a particular site. If the plant complies with the standard set of rules developed to meet the requirements of the GRA and set out under the permit then a standard permit can be issued. Standard permits are currently being developed for AD plants and digestate storage and use. Standard permits should be quicker and less costly to obtain than bespoke permits. The Environment Agency closed its consultation (No 3) on the Standard Rules for the Environmental Permitting Regulations on the 28 August 2009. The rule sets relevant to AD plants are:

-SR2009 No20 Anaerobic digestion facility including use of the resultant biogas

-SR2009 No21 On-farm anaerobic digestion facility including use of resultant biogas

-SR2009 No22 Storage of digestate from anaerobic digestion plants

These rules have now been published on the Environment Agency website and are available at the following link: Standard Permits

Bespoke Permits – for operations which do not meet the rules set out in standard permits. For operations that are generally more complex, larger or have potentially higher risks due to the nature of the operation or site location. The Environment Agency will set specific conditions with which the operation must comply.

Regarding the biogas produced, there is a requirement that the biogas produced is captured and used. To meet the standard rules available for consultation i.e. SR2009 No. 20 and 21, the biogas must be used in compression or spark ignition engines with a rated thermal input of up to 3 MW. The new exemptions (paragraph T24 and T25 under the amended Environmental Permitting Regulations due to be introduced in April 2010) set that the appliance has a net rated thermal input of less than 0.4 MW.

Consolidated permits may be available to operators with more than one facility. This is however only available if the facilities are on one site i.e. there is more than one type of permitted activity on one site.

Establishing which permit is relevant for your facility and demonstrating compliance with the various requirements of both Standard and Bespoke permits will require direct consultation with the Environment Agency and it is recommended that you contact your local EA permitting officer. There is information and guidance on environmental permitting of AD plants on the Environment Agency’s website (http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/business/sectors/37338.aspx)

 

Duty of Care

The Duty of Care is set out in section 34 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and associated regulations. It applies to anyone who is the holder of controlled waste. Persons concerned with controlled waste must ensure that the waste is managed properly, recovered or disposed of safely, does not cause harm to human health or pollution of the environment and is only transferred to someone who is authorised to receive it. The duty applies to any person who produces, imports, carries, keeps, treats or disposes of controlled waste or as a broker has control of such waste. You should visit the Welsh Assembly Government ‘Duty of Care’ web page for more information.

The Environmental Protection (Duty of Care) Regulations (with amendments) sets out the framework within which waste should be appropriately held and transported. Specific requirements of the Duty of Care Regulations include:

·That you identify, store and transport your waste appropriately and securely;

·That your waste is collected, transported and handled by companies or people that are authorised to do so;

-All businesses or individuals that collect or transport waste on a professional basis must be registered with the Environment Agency to do so.

-Similarly all businesses or individuals who arrange for the collection or disposal of waste (e.g. brokers or dealers) must also be registered with the Environment Agency.

·That any transfer of waste between two separate bodies are recorded on an appropriate Waste Transfer Note, with such records being kept for a minimum period of two years.

DEFRA has recently undergone a public consultation on the Revised Waste Duty of Care Code of Practice (April 2009) which provides a good overview of how to comply with the Regulations. Further information can be found at the Defra website.