Volume 14: Responsibilities for Human and Animal Health
8. Pollution control and waste disposal
Conclusions

8.156 The changes to all three strands of pollution control between 1986 and 1996 had generally tightened the procedures by introducing licensing systems for (a) solid waste to landfill and (b) incineration. But to some degree these had been offset by exemptions from licensing, especially in respect of solid waste disposal, although such exemptions had to be registered. Similarly, enforcement had generally become better organised and, from 1 April 1996, the amalgamation of the waste regulation authorities - NRA and HMIP - into the Environment Agency created a single central regulator. But in many areas local authorities, especially Environmental Health Officers in the district councils, retained some responsibilities. Enforcement depended on the availability of resources.

8.157 Some of the waste and pollution issues outstanding at the end of the period with which the Inquiry is concerned were contained in a note from DoE's Waste Policy Division sent to MAFF's Animal Health (Disease Control) Division on 27 March 1996, setting out initial thoughts on the disposal of BSE carcasses. Under the heading 'Possible environmental risks - concerns and questions', the author wrote:

(a) Cattle not diagnosed as having BSE may be carriers of the prion (the protein causing the disease) and slaughtered as normal, the blood and offal being mixed with uncontaminated tissue.

(b) There is also the risk of brain and spinal cord tissue now banned from the food chain being included in these wastes.

(c) Also the smaller risk of contamination from the deliberate flouting or careless implementation of MAFF controls.

(d) One of ADAS's ¹ major clients for advice on landspreading (Transorganics) has been advised by MAFF that this prion is quite stable; whether it will degrade or be denatured by natural systems in land and water is unknown.

(e) Washings discharged to sewer by abattoirs raise the further issue of:

(i.) potential contamination of sewage effluents and their discharge to rivers, and

(ii.) of sludges which are largely landspread.

Again, nothing is known of the survival of the prion in sewage treatment processes. ²