Who needs an environmental permit?

You must have an environmental permit in England and Wales if you carry out any activity or operation that is covered by the term regulated facility.

You can be fined or sent to prison if you operate, or allow a regulated facility to operate, without an environmental permit. You must not start operating a regulated facility before your environmental permit has been issued. To find out how to apply for an environmental permit, see our guidance on how to apply.

You do not need an environmental permit if your facility is exempt or excluded.

Exempt facilities include those that carry out exempt waste operations, exempt groundwater activities, exempt water discharge activities and radioactive substances activities that are excluded or covered by an exemption order. To find out more about exempt facilities, see our guidance on who needs to register an exemption.

Excluded waste operations include some sewage sludge or septic tank sludge operations and operations licensed under Part 2 of the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985.

If you have an old pollution prevention control (PPC) permit, waste management licence (WML), water discharge consent, groundwater permit or radioactive substances registration or authorisation, see our guidance on what happened to your old permit, licence or exemption.

What is a regulated facility?

There are seven main classes of regulated facilities:

Installations
Mobile plant
Waste operations
Mining waste operations
Radioactive substances activities
Water discharge activities
Groundwater activities

What is an installation?

An installation is a stationary technical unit, such as a self-contained building, permanent structure or fixed plant, that is used for one or more listed activities. It also includes any directly associated activities that are carried out at the same site, such as a treatment plant that is used exclusively to treat waste from a listed activity.

Listed activities include:

burning fuel, gasification, liquification and refining activities
manufacturing and processing metals
manufacturing lime, cement, ceramics or glass
manufacturing chemicals, pharmaceuticals or explosives, storing chemicals in bulk
incinerating waste, operating landfills, recovering waste
using solvents
intensive pig and poultry farming.

Listed activities are split into three categories according to their environmental impact and type of permit they need: part A(1), part A(2) and part B:

Part A permits control activities with a range of environmental impacts, including emissions to air, land and water.
Part B permits control activities which cause emissions to air.

Environment Agency: RGN 2 Appendices to understanding the meaning of a regulated facility (Adobe PDF - 656KB)

What is mobile plant?

Mobile plant is moveable plant used for:

listed activities
waste operations, known as waste mobile plant.

What is a waste operation?

Waste operations are waste disposal or recovery activities, such as operating a waste transfer station or metal recycling site.

Some waste operations are carried out as part of another regulated facility, such as an installation or waste mobile plant.

You should check whether your waste operations are exempt from environmental permitting. To find out more, see our guidance on who needs to register an exemption.

What is a mining waste operation?

If you manage extractive waste you are probably carrying out a mining waste operation. For example, if you:

handle, store or treat extractive waste
store extractive waste at a mining waste facility.
Not all excavation material produced during mineral extraction is extractive waste. The Environment Agency is working with industry to develop a step-by-step procedure for identifying extractive waste.

You may be able to deposit unpolluted soil, non-hazardous waste from prospecting or waste from extracting, treating or storing peat without an environmental permit if you comply with the requirements in the Environment Agency’s regulatory position statement.

Environment Agency: Regulatory position statement on the deposit of unpolluted soil, and of waste arising from prospecting for mineral resources and from peat workings (Adobe PDF - 72KB)
Environment Agency: Mining waste environmental permitting guidance

Some mining waste operations are carried out as part of another regulated facility, such as a water discharge activity.

Defra: Environmental permitting guidance on the mining waste directive (Adobe PDF - 1.58MB)

To find out more about mining waste operations, see our mining and quarrying guidance.

Managing extractive waste in England and Wales
Waste management plans

What is a radioactive substances activity?

A radioactive substances activity includes:

keeping or using radioactive material at premises
disposing of radioactive waste on or from premises
accumulating radioactive waste on premises
receiving radioactive waste for disposal
keeping or using mobile radioactive apparatus for certain purposes.

Defra: Environmental permitting guidance on radioactive substances regulation (Adobe PDF - 567KB)
Environment Agency: RSR environmental permitting guidance

You do not need an environmental permit if your activities are excluded or an exemption order applies to your radioactive source or radioactive waste under the Radioactive Substances Act 1993. Exemption orders are being reviewed and are expected to be brought into environmental permitting in 2011.

DECC: Exemption orders and review programme

To find out more about radioactive substances regulation, see our guidance on radioactive substances and waste.

What is a water discharge activity?

A water discharge activity includes:

discharging poisonous, noxious or polluting matter, waste matter, trade effluent or sewage effluent into inland freshwaters (freshwater rivers, streams, watercourses, reservoirs, canals, ditches, lakes or ponds), coastal waters, estuaries or territorial waters
discharging trade effluent or sewage effluent by a pipe from land into the sea
removing material from the bottom, bed or channel of any inland freshwaters that has built up from a dam, weir or sluice, if you cause any of that material to be carried away in the water
cutting or uprooting large amounts of vegetation in or nearby any inland freshwaters if you do not take reasonable steps to remove the vegetation from the water
other activities that your regulator tells you that you will need an environmental permit for, such as a discharge from a highway drain.

Water discharge activities can be carried out:

by themselves as a stand alone water discharge activity, or
as part of another regulated facility, such as an installation or mining waste operation.

Defra: Environmental permitting guidance on water discharge activities (Adobe PDF - 385KB)
Environment Agency: Environmental permitting guidance on point source discharges to surface water or groundwater

You should check whether your water discharge activities are exempt. To find out more, see our guidance on who needs to register an exemption.

To find out more about water pollution, see our guidance on water pollution.

What is a groundwater activity?

A groundwater activity includes:

discharging a pollutant directly into groundwater
discharging a pollutant that might indirectly enter groundwater
any other discharge that might cause a pollutant to directly or indirectly enter groundwater
other activities if you have received a notice from your regulator that tells you to hold an environmental permit for that activity, such as a notice for a discharge from a highway drain.

Groundwater means all water that is below the surface of the ground in the saturation zone and in direct contact with the ground or subsoil, ie water that is below the water table.

Groundwater activities can be carried out:

by themselves as a stand alone groundwater activity, or
as part of another regulated facility, such as an installation or mining waste operation.

Environment Agency: Environmental permitting guidance on point source discharges to surface water or groundwater
Environment Agency: Environmental permitting guidance on groundwater

You should check whether your groundwater activities are exempt. To find out more, see our guidance on who needs to register an exemption.

To find out more about groundwater pollution, see our guidance on water pollution.

What other permits, licences or registrations might you need?

You should check if you need any other registration, licence or permit, including a:

trade effluent consent or agreement with your water or sewerage company or authority if you discharge trade effluent into the public sewerage system
hazardous waste premises registration if you produce or remove hazardous waste
waste carrier or broker registration if you transport waste or arrange for someone else’s waste to be disposed of or recovered
water abstraction or impounding licence if you take or hold water from a watercourse
greenhouse gas permit if the EU emissions trading system applies to your energy intensive facility.

Trade effluent discharges to sewers
Hazardous waste
Waste carriers brokers and dealers
Abstracting and impounding water
Trade your emissions

Further information on regulated facilities

Defra: Environmental permitting core guidance (Adobe PDF - 659KB)
Environment Agency: RGN 2 understanding the meaning of regulated facility (Adobe PDF - 416KB)

In this guideline: