Additional guidance from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and from the Welsh Assembly Government
AQ 6(05)
A(2) incineration activities: used cooking oil
This is to advise that Defra and WAG consider that incinerating used cooking oil (UCO) contaminated with animal matter is not excluded from the scope of the Waste Incineration Directive (WID). Where incinerators or co-incinerators burning such waste are not subject to Environment Agency A(1) regulation, an A(2) permit will be required.Explanation
Article 2(2) of the WID states which plants are excluded from its scope. This note deals with the exclusion of:
"(a) Plants treating only the following wastes:
(iii) vegetable waste from the food processing industry, if the heat generated is recovered,".
The view has now been taken that the meaning of "vegetable waste from the food processing industry" should be taken in a strict sense, ie vegetable waste, such as UCO, that is uncontaminated by any product of animal origin.
Thus oil that has been used for cooking vegetables (eg chip potatoes) remains a vegetable waste; oil that has been used for cooking meat or fish ceases to be a vegetable waste and so an incinerator or co-incinerator burning it will not be excluded from the WID.
The 'food processing industry' is taken as including factory and retail outlets and consequently includes fish and chip shops.
Therefore, in order to fall within the terms of Article 2(2)(a)(iii) of WID the installation must:
- be using vegetable waste (uncontaminated by any products of animal origin),
- the vegetable waste must be from the food processing industry,
- the energy must be recovered.
Defra/AEQ
February 2005
Page published: 9 February 2005