Monitoring in The United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, it took until the 1840s to bring onto the statute books legislation to control water pollution. It was extended to all rivers and coastal water by 1961. However, currently the clean up of historic contamination is controlled under a specific statutory scheme found in Part IIA of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (Part IIA), as inserted by the Environment Act 1995, and other ‘rules’ found in regulations and statutory guidance. The Act came into force in England in April 2000.

Within the current regulatory framework, Pollution Prevention and Control (PPC) is a regime for controlling pollution from certain industrial activities. The regime introduces the concept of Best Available Techniques ("BAT") to environmental regulations. Operators must use the BAT to control pollution from their industrial activities to prevent, and where that is not practicable, to reduce to acceptable levels, pollution to air, land and water from industrial activities. The Best Available Techniques also aim to balance the cost to the operator against benefits to the environment. The system of Pollution Prevention and Control is replacing that of Integrated Pollution Control (IPC) (which was established by the Environmental Protection Act 1990) and is taking effect between 2000 and 2007. The Pollution Prevention and Control regime implements the European Directive (EC/96/61) on integrated pollution prevention and control.