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Regulatory information

The EPA is a statutory body with specific powers under environment protection legislation. In September 2003, the EPA became part of the Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC).

Categorisation of incoming organics

The categorisation system identified at Table 3 corresponds to the Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Natural Resources' EIS Practice Guideline: Composting and Related Facilities (DUAP 1996). Consent and concurrence authorities use these guidelines when they are evaluating development applications. Development consents issued nowadays generally indicate the categories of organics that are allowed to be processed at particular facilities.

The main factors that determine the categories are:

• potential to generate offensive odours
• potential to attract vermin and vectors
• potential to generate harmful leachate, which could contaminate surface water, groundwater and soil.

Category 1 organics have the lowest potential environmental impact. Category 2 organics have a greater impact. Category 3 organics (these include meat, fish, fatty foods and fatty or oily sludges; see Table 3) have the greatest potential to seriously affect the environment and amenity. Thus facility occupiers need to take special care when selecting and using equipment and management techniques suitable for the particular incoming organics, in order to avoid the abovementioned negative impacts during handling and processing.

Although the potential environmental impact of each category of organics is different, the environmental performance requirements are the same for facilities processing any category of organics (for the categorisation of organics see Table 3). As outlined in Section 4, occupiers of facilities are thus responsible for selecting and applying the best mix of techniques suitable to the category of incoming organics in order to meet environmental performance requirements (see later in this section).

When developing conditions for environment protection licences under the POEO Act (see below) the EPA uses a categorisation system (Table 3). The EPA recommends that facility planners consider using this categorisation system when selecting suitable environment management techniques (see later in this section and Appendix B). Appendix A also provides information regarding design and selection of suitable environmental management techniques to control potential impacts from categorised incoming organics.

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Licensing requirements

POEO Act

The conditions under which composting facilities are required to hold environment protection licences are listed in Schedule 1 to the POEO Act. Licences may be required because the facilities are over a certain size or are located near sensitive sites such as schools or hospitals.

Environment protection licences aim to specify environmental outcomes and the minimum performance requirements that need to be achieved. For information about licensing and associated costs see Guide to Licensing under the Protection of the Environment Operations Act 1997, (EPA, 1999b). This publication can be obtained from the DEC website site at www.environment.nsw.gov.au or by calling the DEC Pollution Line on 131 555.

The appropriate regulatory authority (ARA) for facilities not required to hold environment protection licences by Schedule 1 to the POEO Act is usually the local council, unless the council is carrying out the activity itself, in which case the EPA is the ARA. Although these guidelines are relevant to composting and related organics-processing facilities that are required to hold environment protection licences (see Table 1), people who do composting or process organics on a larger than a domestic scale but who are not required to be licensed may find useful information in this document relating to the management of such processes.

 Licence application

The EPA requires proponents to provide information with their environment protection licence applications on their proposed facilities in order for the EPA to:

• understand the likely impacts the facilities could have on the environment 
• assess the measures proposed to mitigate those impacts and protect the environment.

Information on the details that must be provided on the environment protection licence application form can be obtained from the DEC website at www.environment.nsw.gov.au or by calling the DEC Pollution Line on 131 555. Appendix A is provided as a guide to help individuals, companies, local government bodies and communities planning composting and related organics processing facilities. It outlines the types of issues that should be considered when planning such facilities. The issues outlined in Section 4 of these guidelines and those described in the EIS Practice Guideline: Composting and Related Facilities (DUAP 1996) should also be addressed in the environmental impact statement that must be prepared under the development assessment process.

Licence conditions

Environment protection licences issued by the EPA under the POEO Act use the three-category system to specify the organics that facilities can receive (see Table 3).

Environment protection licences allow facilities to receive organics categorised as having a lesser environmental impact but not organics categorised as having a greater potential impact. For example, facilities licensed to receive Category 2 organics may receive organics from Category 1 but not from Category 3.

Licence conditions will include:

• performance requirements and performance measurements for each environmental objective listed in Section 4 of these guidelines, or
• the performance requirements shown in these guidelines and any alternative performance measurements proposed by the applicant and approved by the EPA for a particular environmental objective (see below).

If receipt of a certain type of organics at a licensed facility proves to be problematic, the EPA will not permit those organics to be received at the facility any longer.

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Table 3: Categorisation of organics

Potential to have environmental impact	Organics category	Types of organics permitted in categories1 (Categories with larger numbers may contain types from classes with smaller numbers.)
		Type	Examples of organics
Lowest potential environmental impact	Category 1	Garden and landscaping organics	Grass2; leaves; plants; loppings; branches; tree trunks and stumps
		Untreated timber	Sawdust; shavings; timber offcuts; crates; pallets; wood packaging.
		Natural organic fibrous organics	Peat; seed hulls/husks; straw; bagasse and other natural organic fibrous organics.
		Processed fibrous organics	Paper; cardboard; paper-processing sludge; non-synthetic textiles.
Greater potential environmental impact than Category 1, less potential impact than Category 3	Category 2	Other natural or processed vegetable organics	Vegetables; fruit and seeds and processing sludges and wastes; winery, brewery and distillery wastes; food organics excluding organics in Category 3.
		Biosolids3 and manures	Sewage biosolids, animal manure and mixtures of manure and biodegradable animal bedding organics.
Greatest potential environmental impact	Category 3	Meat, fish and fatty foods	Carcasses and parts of carcasses; blood; bone; fish; fatty processing or food.
		Fatty and oily sludges and organics of animal and vegetable origin Dewatered grease trap; fatty and oily sludges of animal and vegetable origin.	Dewatered grease trap; fatty and oily sludges of animal and vegetable origin.
		Mixed residual waste containing putrescible organics	Wastes containing putrescible organics, including household domestic waste that is set aside for kerbside collection or delivered by the householder directly to a processing facility, and waste from commerce and industry.
Notes: These categories are used only to facilitate reference to these groupings of waste and organics (with different potential environmental impacts) in these guidelines and in environment protection licences: they are not used in waste legislation. Particular care should be taken when grass clippings are present in the feedstock. It is well known that careful process management is required to mitigate odour and leachate problems when processing grass clippings (e.g. Buckner 2002). High moisture content, high nitrogen levels, abundance of readily available organic matter and poor structure and tendency to mat mean that grass can easily become anaerobic and odorous. Conditions applying to processing and use can be found in Environmental Guidelines: Use and Disposal of Biosolids Products (EPA 1997).

Development assessment

The siting of composting and related organics-processing facilities is often a contentious planning issue, particularly when the facility is proposed to be located close to residential or other areas whose occupants or users are sensitive to odours.

The Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 and the Environmental Planning and Assessment Regulation 2000 require proponents of new composting and related organics-processing facilities to lodge development applications to the appropriate consent authority (usually the local council).

This first part of the process is likely to require the preparation of an environmental impact statement (EIS). The requirements are set out in the publication EIS Practice Guideline: Composting and Related Facilities (DUAP 1996). For applications that involve an EIS, the EPA can require specific information to be included in the EIS at an early stage of the process.

If the facility requires an environment protection licence from the EPA (see Licence conditions, above), under integrated development assessment (IDA) the DEC will be involved in the approval process. It is important that the proponent demonstrate in the EIS that the relevant environmental outcomes specified in Section 4 of these guidelines can be achieved. If adequate information is not supplied, the EPA will request further information to support the development application, and delays in the assessment and approval process will result. Once the EPA has suitable information to support the development application, the EPA provides general terms of approval (GTA) to the consent authority. The GTAs from the EPA would be consistent with the requirements outlined in Section 4. The development consent must incorporate the EPA's general terms of approval. The EPA must ensure that the licence issued is consistent with the development consent.

Further information regarding the issues to consider during the planning of composting and related organics-processing facilities is provided in Appendix A.

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Environmental management techniques

Occupiers of the facility are responsible for selecting and applying the best mix of techniques for site development and management for their particular location to meet the required environmental objectives (see Section 4). To help environment protection licence applicants discharge their responsibility, Appendix B of these guidelines provides examples of environmental management techniques covering possible approaches to the design and management of their facilities. These sample techniques will often need modifying to meet the specific environmental issues of the site, and it is likely that techniques alternative to the samples provided in the Appendix have been developed since publication of these guidelines. Thus the sample techniques should be assessed and considered by licence applicants as a starting point for selecting appropriate controls.

Appropriate environmental management techniques to meet the environmental objectives specified in Section 4 for any given site should be chosen in the light of four points:

• Management, design and construction techniques will all depend on early decisions on facility location, the selection of the proposed processing technology, and the types of organics received (see Appendix A).
• Not all techniques will be appropriate to a given facility.
• A combination of design and construction, operations management, monitoring, and remediation measures is generally required to deal with the range of potential environmental impacts for a given site and facility.
• The environmental management techniques, where relevant, meet the minimum requirements specified by the Minimum Design Requirements in Section 5 of these guidelines.

The EPA encourages occupiers to use operational, monitoring or design techniques appropriate to their proposed facility. However, these must satisfy the environmental objectives identified in Section 4 and the Minimum Design Requirements listed in Section 5, which in turn may require additional measures to prevent unacceptable impacts from occurring. The benchmark methods for measuring and monitoring the performance of facilities are described in Section 6.

Alternative methods of measuring performance

Section 6 of these guidelines describes benchmark methods to measure and monitor performance. However, in the spirit of its performance-based approach, the EPA encourages environment protection licence applicants to develop their own site-specific monitoring methods and ways of measuring the performance of facilities against the performance requirements. Applicants must demonstrate that their methods are suitable for assessing compliance with the performance requirements. If alternative methods are approved, the EPA will include them as conditions of a facility's environment protection licence.

If facility occupiers want to use alternative or modified methods to measure and monitor performance, they must provide information to support their environment protection licence applications or specific requests in negotiations on amendments to their existing environment protection licences. Applicants will need to provide documentation that either:

• identifies the extent to which the system is used successfully elsewhere and certifies that:
  • the conditions are comparable
  • the system has been operating long enough for its possible consequences to be known
  • the prospective occupier can duplicate the system that is used
  • the system works to achieve the desired outcome
  • there is no opposing evidence
  • the proposal is compatible with other aspects of the composting and related organics processing facility operation, and
  • the technique is benign to the environment with respect to all other environmental objectives.

or

• demonstrates:
  • the soundness of the proposal in field or laboratory tests
  • that the conditions simulate the proper operating conditions
  • that the system works to achieve the desired outcome
  • that there is no opposing evidence
  • how the EPA can replicate the test results produced by the applicant, if desired
  • that the proposal is compatible with other operational aspects of the proposed composting and related organics processing facility, and
  • that the technique is benign to the environment with respect to all other environmental objectives.

If, in the opinion of the EPA, the proposed alternative methods to measure performance will not be adequate for detecting serious or irreversible harm to the environment, the EPA may request an independent expert assessment.

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Documenting environmental management

Environmental management plans and systems

The DEC encourages the development and use of environmental management plans (EMPs) and environmental management systems (EMSs), because these can be very useful framework documents that help give details of the processes, procedures and management practices for their facilities (Allen 1999). For example, a water management strategy (see Glossary) that describes the measures to be taken to protect groundwater and surface water would be an item to be included in an EMP. Environmental management plans usually cover items outside EPA licensing requirements, such as energy and resource conservation; therefore, the EPA does not require EMPs or EMSs to be developed as a condition of licences. However, detailed information that relates to potential environmental impacts, for example the measures described in a water management strategy or a biogas management strategy (see Glossary), must be supplied to the EPA to support the development application even if an EMP is not compiled.

An outline EMP is often required under the integrated development approval process, if the development application process for the facility requires that an EIS be prepared. If you need to prepare an outline EMP, it should address all of the performance requirements and performance measurements (including monitoring strategies) in these guidelines. Appendix C contains a complete list of items that could be included in an EMP for composting and related organics processing facilities.

Water assessment plans

A water assessment plan is an important tool to help the occupier in detecting any pollution at, and emanating from, the premises. A water assessment plan should document background water characteristics before site establishment and should describe (where relevant) the discharge points and monitoring points. It should also identify indicator parameters and limits for each indicator parameter that can be used to detect possible pollution at an early stage. A water assessment plan is usually required under the integrated development approval process, unless the facility poses no pollution threat to waters at, or surrounding, the premises.

Appendix D contains a list of items that could be included in a water assessment plan for composting and related organics processing facilities. See also Section 6 ('Water pollution') for information regarding how the water assessment plan can be used to measure and monitor performance of the facility.

Financial provisions and closure plans for the facility

Financial assurance

The licensee will need to demonstrate that they have the ability to cover the cost of site remediation that may be needed when the composting and related organics processing eventually ceases.

Under the POEO Act, the EPA can require a financial assurance to secure or guarantee funding for remediation or pollution reduction programs from the occupier of a scheduled (licensed) premises. The EPA cannot require a financial assurance unless it is satisfied that it is justified with regards to:

• the degree of risk of environmental harm associated with the activities to be carried out
• any site remediation work that may be required because of activities to be carried out under the environment protection licence
• the environmental record of the holder of the environment protection licence, and
•  any other matter referred to in regulations under the Act.

If the EPA requires a financial assurance, it will liaise with the applicant to establish the amount and form of the financial guarantee.

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Facility closure

Under the POEO Act, the environment protection licence conditions may require the person who holds the environment protection licence to submit a closure plan to the EPA immediately before the facility is to cease operation.

If the closure plan does not adequately describe how the performance requirements listed in Section 4, Issue 13, will be achieved, the EPA would request further information.

The EPA may approve the submitted closure plan or vary it before approval. If the closure plan cannot be approved, the EPA would not accept surrender of the environment protection licence. Ongoing maintenance of the licence would impose additional administrative costs.

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