Regulating Pollution: Alara, Batneec and Beyond

Abstract

Pollution regulation in the United Kingdom has developed over many years, with different agencies developing different approaches to protect air, water and land. Furthermore, regulation of the nuclear industry developed separately from other industries. In the 1990s an era of Integrated Pollution Control began. The aim is to unify the way pollution is regulated by building on concepts like the reduction of radiation exposure to levels of As Low As Reasonably Achievable (ALARA) and the prevention of conventional pollution via the Best Available Techniques Not Entailing Excessive Cost (BATNEEC). Regulatory methodologies suffer from difficulties inherent in dealing with a mixture of health, economic, environmental and social factors. Guidance on how this should be undertaken has developed over time, but is still far from being clear and unambiguous in some key areas. This paper reviews the background to concepts like ALARA and BATNEEC, and discusses the optimization of impacts across more than one medium to achieve the Best Practicable Environmental Option (BPEO). The paper looks beyond current procedures by discussing the problems associated with their application to developing issues.