What Do I Need to Do?
What do I need to do?
1. Apply for a Discharge Consent
If you intend to discharge anything other than clean, uncontaminated surface water to surface waters or groundwater, you must obtain a Discharge Consent from your Environmental Regulator.
If you or your business already discharge any quantity of potentially polluting material (including sewage or trade effluent), no matter how small, to surface waters or groundwater and you do not have written consent or permission to do so, then you should contact your Environmental Regulator to discuss the best means of tackling the problem. Failure to do so could lead to enforcement action.
If you or your business have a Discharge Consent from the Environmental Regulator, you must comply with all of the conditions included in it. Failure to do so may result in enforcement action and/or prosecution by your Environmental Regulator.
2. Check your site drainage
If you discharge any effluents (such as trade effluents, sewage or cooling waters) to drains on your site, you should clarify whether these drains are linked to the foul sewer or surface water drains.
Foul sewers carry effluents to a sewage works for treatment; if you generate trade effluent you are likely to need a Consent or Agreement from your Sewerage Undertaker to discharge to these sewers (see the Trade Effluent Management Guideline for further information).
Surface water drains may discharge directly to surface waters or groundwater. You will be committing an offence if you allow poisonous, noxious or polluting matter to enter a drain and reach surface waters or groundwater unless you have a Discharge Consent.
3. Minimise the discharges from your site
Whenever possible, avoid the need for a Discharge Consent from the Environmental Regulator by minimising the number and quantities of effluents that need to be discharged to surface waters or groundwater. Try to find alternative means of disposal. Such alternatives might be discharge to foul sewer (subject to a Trade Effluent Consent/Agreement from the Sewerage Undertaker), or disposal by a licensed waste management contractor in accordance with the Duty of Care.
Trade Effluent
Explore the possibilities for using alternative materials and practices that do not result in the production of effluents e.g. reuse of water for a lower grade purpose such as non-critical rinsing.
4. IPC/IPPC
If your business has an Integrated Pollution Control (IPC) or Integrated Pollution and Prevention Control (IPPC) authorisation covering discharges from your site to surface waters or groundwater, then you will not require a Discharge Consent.
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