Carcass incineration

What you must do

You must not incinerate animal carcasses without consulting your environmental regulator.

It is an offence to burn animal carcasses in the open. The only exceptions are during disease outbreaks or similar circumstances when the relevant authorities may give you special authorisation for burning. The relevant authorities are Animal Health in England, Scotland and Wales or the Divisional Veterinary Office in Northern Ireland.

If you operate an on-farm incinerator that only burns whole carcasses, you must ensure the incinerator is approved by:

  • Animal Health in England, Scotland and Wales
  • Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD) in Northern Ireland.

If you burn non-agricultural animal carcasses or parts of animal carcasses, your incinerator must be authorised by your local council or your environmental regulator, in addition to Animal Health or DARD.

If you use an incinerator that has a capacity to incinerate more than 50kg of carcasses per hour, you may require a Pollution Prevention and Control permit from your environmental regulator.

Good practice

If you are authorised to burn carcasses you should take a number of steps to reduce your environmental impact.

Avoid producing dark smoke by:

  • placing primary fuel (eg straw, fuel oil, heavy untreated timbers, coal) in the base of the fire, and the carcasses on top
  • designing the pyre to allow burning to take place up and through the material rather than from the top down; this creates a much higher temperature and reduces the risk of creating dark smoke
  • never using plastics or tyres as fuel.

You should:

  • supervise burning at all times and have a fire extinguisher, water supply or a bowser available for emergencies
  • only burn carcasses in daylight hours
  • contact your local fire brigade to let them know you are burning, before lighting the fire.