Abstract:The European Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) directive compels the more polluting industries to apply Best Available Techniques (BAT) in order to reach an adequate level of environmental protection. In Europe, despite the difficulty of implementing the IPPC directive, there is nowadays an increasing endeavour to develop methodologies for quantitative integrated assessments of pollution, improve the understanding and application of BAT at the installation stage and facilitate their selection for European Reference Documents. The methodology proposed in this article aims at helping stakeholders (industrialists, authorities) deal with the update of their exploitation licence (i.e. in this case, the French technical report). Taking into account the local context of the studied companies, the methodology focuses on the evaluation of existing BAT techniques and provides a general framework for the assessment of production units and management processes. The methodology is carried out as a four-step procedure involving an environmental and risk performance assessment tool and an evaluation grid for the production unit. Each production unit is rated through an evaluation grid made of six levels of compliance with the performance of BAT. The aggregation of these marks allows the comparison to the IPPC objectives. Finally, the applicability of this qualitative assessment has been validated through several metal finishing facilities.
Les textes réglementaires incitant à tenir compte de la sensibilité du milieu local foisonnent au niveau français et européen. Cependant, ces textes ne proposent pas de cadre méthodologique pour l'évaluation de la sensibilité du milieu. Parallèlement à cela, les outils d'évaluation des impacts environnementaux des entreprises se formalisent et se multiplient, mais comment évaluer l'impact d'une activité et caractériser la sensibilité de son contexte local ? Cet article propose de combler ce manque, en apportant une méthode d'évaluation de la sensibilité du milieu récepteur. Cette méthode est basée sur la définition, l'identification et l'organisation des thèmes caractérisant cette sensibilité (thèmes statiques : eaux souterraines, eaux superficielles, sol superficiel et air ; thèmes dynamiques : caractéristiques des milieux biologiques et humains). L'approche proposée est une approche qualitative basée sur un questionnaire simple et rapide. La sensibilité est évaluée selon une échelle à quatre niveaux allant de peu sensible à très sensible. L'objectif final est l'intégration de la sensibilité du milieu dans une méthodologie globale d'évaluation des performances environnementales de techniques en vue de les comparer puis de les valider « meilleures techniques disponibles ». L'article présente un exemple d'application de cette méthode.
The implementation of the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) directive mandates that industries use techniques that have the same effectiveness as Best Available Techniques (BAT). BAT represents the combination of technical processes and management practices with overall positive environmental and cost benefits.Article 13 of the IPPC directive is about the revision for initial permit conditions. To comply, industries should adopt a rigorous approach to justify to the authorities that all of their existing techniques are equivalent to BAT environmental performances. This analysis must be done technique by technique. For this, technical guides have been established at the European level: the BREF. Unfortunately, these documents are not easy to use or particularly clear. Therefore, the aim of this research project is to develop an environmental performance process assessment methodology in order to compare and then validate in house processes as BAT.Our methodology will be tested on wastewater treatment processes for metal finishing sectors. This decision making tool emphasizes the cross media effects and thus corresponds to an integrated approach for the IPPC directive.
In order to reach an adequate level of environmental protection, the European Union has defined a set of common rules, in the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) directive, based on Best Available Techniques (BAT) for many pollutant installations. However, there is a problem: the IPPC does not suggest a way to meet BAT requirements for individual industrial units. Therefore, this paper presents the development of our environmental performance assessment methodology in order to transpose and facilitate the implementation of the IPPC directive locally. The approach offers a method to verify overall if an industrial installation conforms with BAT. This methodology is participatory and created with the advice of both industrial (from the metal finishing sector) and governmental (local, regional and national) representatives. This cognitive aid is designed to be updatable to deal with future regulatory and technical change. The participative approach plans to establish a decision support tool that is user friendly, effective and representative of the context involved.Finally, the case study is ongoing in the metal finishing sector.
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