Owners of domestic septic tanks or a sewage treatment plants in England and
Wales may no longer need to apply for a permit to discharge under new exemptions
published by the Environment Agency.
The move has been welcomed by Klargester, the UK's leading brand of sewage
treatment solutions, as a way of avoiding the cost of a permit and speeding up
the process of registration for owners of small, off-mains drainage products.
By law, anyone who installs a septic tank or sewage treatment plant must apply
for a permit to discharge into groundwater or surface water, under what is now
the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2010. For
discharges into surface water, the registration date was from April 6, 2010 and
for discharges into groundwater there is nearly a two-year delay with
registrations required by January 1 2012.
However, under EPP2, a sewage treatment plant that discharges less than 5m3 per
day into surface water no longer needs a permit. Furthermore, a septic tank or
sewage treatment plant that discharges less than 2m3 per day into ground water
will also no longer need to apply for a permit. All users will need to do is
register their details with the Environmental Agency and demonstrate they meet
certain conditions. These include installing a product that has been
performance-tested in line with European Standards (EN12566), as well as
ensuring that they follow the industry guidelines on installation and keeping
annual service records for up to five years.
Kevin Roe, Kingspan Environmental's GB Sales Director for pollution control
products which owns Klargester, says: "We fully support the new regulation
exemptions and we hope specifiers will consider automatically selecting EN12566-
rated products such as the BioDisc sewage treatment plant and the Alpha Septic
tank for their projects. If they do, and their clients qualify for these
exemptions, then the clients won't need to pay for a permit. Furthermore, the
specifier will have the reassurance that they have recommended a product that is
fit-for-purpose and which complies with European and British Standards.
"For preference, we always recommend installing a sewage treatment plant for off-
mains drainage as it will be far more efficient than a septic tank at treating
the waste within the effluent."
