What happened to your old permit, licence or exemption?

In England and Wales, the environmental permitting regime replaces:

pollution prevention and control (PPC) permits
waste management licences (WML)
water discharge consents
groundwater permits
radioactive substances registrations or authorisations.

Did you have a PPC permit or waste management licence?

If you held a PPC permit or WML on 5 April 2008, it automatically became an environmental permit on 6 April 2008.

Did you have a water discharge consent, groundwater permit or radioactive substances registration or authorisation?

If you held a water discharge consent, groundwater permit or radioactive substances registration or authorisation on 5 April 2010, it automatically became an environmental permit or, in some cases, a registered exemption on 6 April 2010.

Did you have a registered waste exemption?

All exempt waste operations (exemptions) were replaced by new exempt waste operations on 6 April 2010.

Some waste exemptions have been changed, some have been added and some no longer exist. Higher risk waste operations that were previously exempt now require an environmental permit. There is no longer a distinction between simple and complex waste exemptions.

If you had a registered exempt waste operation on 5 April 2010 you can continue operating under the terms of your existing exemption until certain transition dates.

You will need to check what happened to your waste exemption and do one of the following things by the relevant transition date.

Check if your waste operation is now covered by a Non-Waste Framework Directive (NWFD) exemption, low risk waste position or regulatory position statement. If it is covered by one of these you don’t need to register the exemption.
Register an exemption under the new system if you can meet the limits and conditions for an exempt waste operation.
Apply for an environmental permit if you can’t meet the limits and conditions of a NWFD exemption or exempt waste operation. New standard permits replace some higher risk waste exemptions.
Stop operating if you can’t comply with any of the above.

To find out what transition date applies to your exempt waste operation and for further guidance on what happened to your old exemption, see the Environment Agency’s website.

Environment Agency: Table of transition dates (Adobe PDF - 66KB)
Environment Agency: Waste exemption review - getting ready for change (Adobe PDF - 30KB)
Environment Agency: Making the step to permitting (Adobe PDF - 202KB)

Some old waste exemptions will become NWFD exemptions from 6 April 2010, including exemptions under old paragraphs 26, 27, 34, 39, 49, 50, 51 or 52. Some old waste exemptions may be covered by NWFD exemptions if they meet certain conditions, including exemptions under old paragraphs 17, 18 and 40.

You do not need to register NWFD exemptions with the Environment Agency, but you must operate within their limits and conditions. There is more information on NWFD Exemptions on the Environment Agency website.

Environment Agency: Temporary storage of waste at the place of production
Environment Agency: Temporary storage of waste at a place controlled by the producer
Environment Agency: Temporary storage of waste at a collection point

To find out more about the new exempt waste operations, see our guidance on who needs to register an exemption.

Were your activities covered by a low risk waste position?

Low risk waste positions changed on 6 April 2010.

If you relied on a low risk waste position on 5 April 2010 you must check whether your activity is:

now covered by a NWFD exemption that you don’t need to register
a new exempt waste operation that must be registered from 6 April 2010
a regulated activity that now needs an environmental permit by 6 October 2010
covered by a new regulatory position statement because it cannot be given an exemption but it is not reasonable for you to have an environmental permit
still covered by an old low risk waste position.

For further information, see the Environment Agency’s regulatory position statements on low risk waste positions.

Environment Agency: Low risk waste positions
Environment Agency: Regulatory position statement ER 1 on the effect of the exemption review on low risk positions (Adobe PDF - 170KB)
Environment Agency: Regulatory position statement ER 3 moving from low risk and regulatory positions to an environmental permit (Adobe PDF - 71KB)
Environment Agency: Regulatory position statement ER 4 low risk positions that cannot benefit from an exemption and required a regulatory position (Adobe PDF - 70KB)

In this guideline: