Positive steps forward at Defra & EA meeting on Dip Disposal
5th October 2018
On Thursday a long-awaited meeting took place between the sheep farming sector, Defra, and the Environment Agency to discuss the problems created by the new licensing and permitting charges introduced by the EA back in the Spring. NSA Chief Executive Phil Stocker was there and reports: “This issue is one we have been fighting for a while, and it’s taken until now to get a meeting in place however there is some good news to report although more work to be done too. To begin with we took the opportunity to ensure that our Defra colleagues and EA understand what makes our industry tick – there is no use rules and regulations being put in place without this understanding and in my view, we made some real progress here. The big achievement is that the EA announced they were exempting contact dippers from needing to be fully permitted (and charged) in order to bulk up and store spent dip. There are some straightforward provisos that will need to be complied with but what this means is that contract mobile dippers can now bring spent dip back to their operating sites and store it until collection for licensed treatment or disposal. With mobile dipping gaining much favour, and modern equipment offering good operator safety, good sheep welfare, effective treatment, and now fully compliant means of disposal, this outcome is highly welcomed. The other good news is that the EA has agreed to do a ‘light touch review’ of the controls around sheep dip disposal later in the year. So, we still have work to do on this topic, and much more to ramp up our efforts to get sheep scab eradicated (eradication must be our aim even though it’s going to take a lot of co-ordinated effort).” The full conditions and outcomes of the meeting below:
The EA announced new option for mobile dippers. They can now be exempted from full permitting to hold spent dip on site and can temporarily store waste dip at a place controlled by the producer of the waste, pending collection or disposal.
The conditions are that; the sheep dip has been diluted for use in accordance with manufacturers instructions at the place of use and is below hazardous waste thresholds; the total quantity of waste dip stored at any one time does not exceed 20 cubic metres (20,000 litres); the waste dip is stored in a bunded area with an impermeable base able to retain 110% of the largest container or 25% of the total volume that could be stored, whichever is the greater; and that no waste dip is stored for longer than 3 months.
This is a major step forward and should help overcome problems we know exist. There are obviously still disposal charges but this removes the expense of having to licence a premises for storage.
