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Background
The IPPC Directive was adopted by the Council of the European Union in September 1996 to bring about an improved and more consistent approach to environmental protection across Europe. In Scotland, the Directive was made into law with the introduction of the Pollution Prevention and Control (Scotland) Regulations 2000 , commonly referred to as "the PPC Regulations".
What is the European Pollutant Emission Register?
The main reporting requirement of the IPPC Directive is the publication of an inventory of chemical emissions and sources from across Europe. The inventory is called the European Pollutant Emission Register (EPER). The reporting of emissions is required for all activities listed in Annex I of the IPPC Directive. Reporting of emissions is required for the years 2002, 2004 and 2007 with annual reporting likely to start from 2007 onwards. The specific details on the EPER reporting requirements are set out in a European Commission Council Decision (2000/479/EC) ("the EPER Decision")
EPER requires the reporting of emissions of specific chemicals from all Annex 1 activities for which the reporting threshold is exceeded. There are 50 chemicals in total, 26 for releases to water, and 37 for releases to air; for some chemicals reporting is required for releases to both air and water. The chemicals and their reporting thresholds are prescribed in the EPER Decision (Annex A1 and Annex A2 respectively). The EPER Decision further specifies that emissions may be determined by direct measurement, calculation using emission factors, mass balance or similar, or by means of estimation based on informed judgement.
What will the EPER do, and why will it be useful?
The general purpose of is to collect and report on emissions from individual installations across Europe.
The objectives of the EPER are as follows:
- collection of comparable emission data from around 20 000 individual industrial sources and activities throughout Europe as specified in the IPPC Directive;
- storage of the reported data in a register, which is publicly accessible over the Internet; the register relates to emissions to air and water for 50 major chemicals;
- dissemination of the registered data to the public by written reports and the Internet.
Starting in 2003, the European Commission will collect and publish a report on the inventoried emissions and their individual sources on a three-year cycle. For the general public, it is intended that the EPER should be useful because it will improve awareness and accessibility of information on emissions to the environment, and also indicate and enhance transparency and comparability. Member states can use the EPER to monitor progress of achievements by industry in meeting environmental targets in national or international agreements or protocols.
SEPA's role
SEPA has been given the function of compiling the inventory of IPPC emissions for Scotland. All reports for 2002 emissions had to be submitted to SEPA by the end of February 2003. An online reporting system was developed to make it easier to report emissions in the required format.
SEPA has passed this information on to the European Commission via the Environment Agency, who compile the UK return, as well as holding the data on its public register. The European Commission will make all reported emission data for individual installations publicly accessible on the Internet. For now, it is SEPA's intention to make EPER reporting a requirement of all PPC permits. In the autumn of 2004 SEPA intends to issue a statutory notice to all existing installations in Scotland requiring them to furnish emissions information for the purposes of fulfilling the reporting requirements of EPER. Further information about how installations make the report will be made available at that time.
SEPA EPER Reporting Results 2002
SEPA is aware that the new reporting requirement may not have been easy to comply with and we wish to thank all companies that submitted an EPER return.
Disclaimer: The data presented have been submitted by companies to SEPA. SEPA is currently reviewing the submitted data for accuracy and consistency. The review process varies depending on the company’s record management system, data monitoring techniques and methodologies, complexity of the activity being monitored and cooperation of the company. The reader must accept whilst every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information provided, neither Scottish Environment Protection Agency, nor its employees or agents can be held responsible for any inaccuracies or omissions, whether caused by negligence or otherwise
SEPA received 232 of the 233 required EPER reports. SEPA is actively pursuing legal action against the remaining company. Of the 232 submitted reports 108 (47%) reported emissions above the EPER reporting thresholds and the remaining companies were below the reporting thresholds.
For the first time in SEPA an online data entry form was made available for reporting purposes. It proved to be a great success with over 50% of the companies using the electronic EPER data return form to submit their EPER report. The remainder of EPER reports were submitted on paper data return forms. A survey is planned to determine how SEPA can build on the success of electronic data capturing for the reporting of emissions to make reporting easier for companies.
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