Volume 6: Human Health, 1989-96
10. Pollution control and waste management
Introduction
Slaughter and disposal options for diseased animals
Disposal of SBO-derived material via renderers

10.1 Two measures introduced to control BSE - the compulsory slaughter scheme for infected cattle in 1988, and the animal SBO ban in 1990 - had the unwelcome side-effect of producing a large amount of condemned materials requiring special disposal arrangements. The problems this presented were to absorb a great deal of time and effort from MAFF.

10.2 A system already existed for disposing of waste deemed to present dangers to human and animal health. The normal permissible way of disposing of diseased animal carcasses was by incineration or by burial, either on farm or at licensed sites. This chapter reviews that system and how it coped with the additional quantities of cattle carcasses and other tissues that resulted from the BSE measures. As each new measure was considered, its likely impacts on waste disposal problems and costs were factors to be considered.

10.3 The need for safety guidance for those handling BSE-infected carcasses at tips was raised by local authorities early on in the story. We discuss how that was dealt with by MAFF and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in Chapter 8 of this volume.

10.4 The prospect that rising numbers of condemned carcasses might require special guidance to farmers and local authorities as well as provision of equipment and new tips, was also recognised early on. The first and obvious priority was to ensure that the animals that died or were killed on a farm were disposed of swiftly and safely before they rotted. MAFF were the official owners of animals killed under the slaughter and compensation schemes and had to make arrangements for safe disposal of these within the statutory rules. So far as other condemned material was concerned, oversight and enforcement of safe disposal mainly lay with the local authorities and statutory agencies. However, MAFF needed to give advice and encouragement to these bodies over disposal, and to work closely with them to ensure arrangements were appropriate and effective.

10.5 A special problem with BSE was the dearth of knowledge about whether the infective agent could be degraded or inactivated by processes such as quick-liming or copious dilution, and how long it would remain a risk in buried material. For carcasses, therefore, burning was the favoured option, but as BSE cases multiplied demand outstripped available incinerator capacity. Open pyre burning could handle only a fraction of the balance, not least because it soon attracted a considerable public outcry. At a later stage, doubts were raised that this might broadcast the agent far and wide. Burial on farm or at landfill sites therefore remained the only available option until enough incinerator capacity was gradually built up. Planning permission for new incinerators was again in many cases hotly contested.

10.6 Nor was the burial option for such large quantities of material universally popular. There were concerns that disposal on farmers' land or in local authority landfill sites might lead to leaching of the BSE agent into the ground and into water supplies. Some local authorities as time passed refused to accept BSE material on their sites.

10.7 Unlike condemned carcasses, specified bovine offal (SBO) from slaughterhouses and knacker's yards was not allowed to be buried in a raw state. Instead it first had to be 'sterilised', which included processing at rendering mills. The resulting meat and bone meal (MBM) and tallow could then be disposed of by burial on approved landfill sites, if not used for other purposes. As the chapter shows, problems arose over the extent to which the products of rendered SBO were truly 'controlled waste' or might lawfully be used in other ways.

10.8 All these matters, as we shall see, raised considerable passions and had economic repercussions for the disposal of waste animal material generally. Moreover, over the period, new regulatory regimes were being progressively brought in as the water and sewage authorities were reorganised, inspectorates amalgamated, responsibilities shifted away from local authorities, and new standards set for incinerators and emissions under the Environmental Protection Act 1990.

10.9 These new arrangements and regulations were not, however, specifically directed at the nature and inactivation of the BSE agent in burnt or buried material. They were general measures, designed to deal with general environmental and pollution issues. Nor were they concerned with the efficacy of the systems of control over water and condensate discharges from slaughterhouses, knacker's yards and rendering plants in relation to BSE. We note in this chapter some of the questions raised later about discharges from one such rendering plant, Thruxted Mill. Although much of the evidence relates to a time outside the period of this inquiry, we thought some aspects illustrated some of the difficulties that arise in dealing with secondary wastes when there are uncertainties about the nature of the hazard and several different authorities are involved.

10.10 The chapter also looks briefly at the consideration given to possible BSE transmission risks through the spreading on land of another slaughterhouse product, raw blood. This was left unresolved.

10.11 We have not attempted to review wastes arising from other parts of the meat production cycle, such as slurry and manure from housed animals. So far as we are aware, no work, apart from consideration of calf faeces for veterinary preparations, was carried out before March 1996 to assess whether these offered possible pathways of the BSE agent.

10.12 After tracing the course of events we discuss the adequacy of the response and the lessons to be learned from the BSE story.

Slaughter and disposal options for diseased animals

10.13 First, however, we describe the system in existence when BSE emerged, for dealing with diseased animal carcasses. Animals affected, or suspected of being affected, by a notifiable disease which had to be slaughtered could not be sent to a slaughterhouse in the normal way. Instead, they had to be killed and their carcasses disposed of in accordance with the Animal Health Act. This was usually carried out on the farm under veterinary supervision. Disposal was usually by burial or incineration.

10.14 Nor could fallen stock, dead or dying, normally be sent to a slaughterhouse. ¹ Such animals were sometimes buried on the farm. However, before the advent of the BSE epidemic by far the most common means of disposing of these was to call in a knacker or hunt kennel. As discussed in vol. 13: Industry, Processes and Controls, knackers would come on to the farm to collect fallen stock, destroy diseased or injured animals and remove their carcasses, or collect such animals for slaughter on their own premises. They usually paid the farmer a small sum, as they could convert the carcass into saleable products such as hides and pet food. Hunt kennels would also collect carcasses to feed their hounds. ² Both knackers and hunt kennels were left with a considerable amount of waste that they were unable to use and this was disposed of to renderers.

10.15 The Slaughterhouses Act 1974 required that any animal slaughtered in a knacker's yard be stunned and slaughtered in the same way as it would have been in a slaughterhouse. ³ However, it did not regulate the killing of an animal outside knacker's yards or slaughterhouses (for instance, on a farm or in a hunt kennel). While the Act required knackers to be licensed by the local authority as 'offensive trades', it did not require the same of hunt kennels. None the less, some hunt kennels took in more fallen stock than they needed to feed their hounds, with the aim of selling the meat for pet food and MAFF treated these as if they were knacker's yards. ⁴

10.16 BSE became a notifiable disease when the Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Order 1988 came into force on 21 June 1988. ⁵ In August that year a scheme was introduced for the compulsory slaughter of animals showing clinical signs of BSE. ⁶ If a veterinary inspector diagnosed an animal as being affected by BSE it had to be slaughtered, either on the farm or at a place specified by the veterinary inspector. The carcass then had to be 'buried, or sold, or otherwise disposed of' by the Government. ⁷ It could not be collected for use by a knacker or hunt kennel. In practice, the options available to the Government for disposal were incineration, or burial either in a local authority landfill site or on-farm.

Controls over incineration and burial of BSE carcasses

10.17 A number of regulations bore on each of these disposal methods, in order to control their environmental, and in some cases public and animal health, impacts. Further details on these regulations are given in vol. 14: Responsibilities for Human and Animal Health.

10.18 The incineration of animal carcasses, and of other controlled waste from commercial or industrial premises, had to be carried out in accordance with a valid waste disposal licence issued by the waste disposal authority under the Control of Pollution Act 1974. Regulations controlling emissions from incinerators changed between 1986 and 1996. These changes were not as a consequence of BSE:

1. Between 1985 and 1991, new incinerators burning any solid matter at a rate of 45.4 kg an hour or more required approval from the relevant local authority to ensure that suitable equipment was installed to arrest grit and dust emissions. ⁸ The height of chimneys serving furnaces of this size also required approval by the local authority. ⁹
2. Between 1989 and 1991, incinerators capable of incinerating 1 tonne or more of waste per hour also required approval by Her Majesty's Inspector of Pollution (HMIP) to ensure the use of the Best Practicable Means to prevent or render harmless emissions of noxious or offensive substances. ¹⁰
3. Since 1991 animal carcass incinerators have been controlled in one of two ways. Those with an incineration capacity of 1 tonne per hour or more were regulated first by HMIP and then by its successor body, the Environment Agency (EA), under the Integrated Pollution Control (IPC) system established by Part 1 of the Environment Protection Act 1990. The 1990 Act sought to prevent, minimise and render harmless specified emissions to air, water or land. All other incinerators with capacities of under 1 tonne per hour are regulated by local authorities in respect of air pollution. Some small incinerators continued to be exempt from local authority control, including those burning animal remains where the capacity is under 50 kg an hour. ¹¹

10.19 Planning permission from the local authority is required for any waste-management facility requiring a licence. Some facilities, such as certain on-farm incinerators, as discussed above, do not need a licence and therefore do not need planning permission either. Further, in respect of licensed facilities, a consent has to be obtained from the relevant pollution control authority for emissions or discharges to air (and water) before planning permission can be applied for. ¹²

10.20 Open burning (on a bonfire, pyre or in a pit) of livestock carcasses on farm, where the animals concerned had died, or had been compulsorily slaughtered as a result of notifiable disease, was exempt from regulatory control under provisions in the Clean Air (Emission of Dark Smoke) (Exemption) Regulations 1969. This meant that the restrictions applying to larger incinerators did not affect such fires. However, two conditions were attached to this exemption: that there was no other reasonably safe and practicable method of disposal, and that the burning would be supervised. If the burning was carried out by or on behalf of a MAFF inspector, the conditions did not apply.

10.21 Open burning is now covered by the Environmental Protection Act 1990.

10.22 Landfill sites required a licence issued by the waste disposal authority, usually the local authority. Planning permission was required before a licence application could be determined. The waste disposal licence set out the conditions under which the landfill site could operate and in many cases limited the nature of the material the site could accept. These provisions in the 1974 Control of Pollution Act applied at the time BSE emerged. Although there have been further regulatory developments since then, including the 1975 EC Framework Directive on Waste and the Environment Protection Act 1990, the basic licensing requirement for landfill sites has been retained.

10.23 The main restriction on burial on farm was the Dogs Act 1906, under which it was an offence to leave a carcass exposed so that dogs could gain access. Furthermore, under the Control of Pollution Act 1974 Part I, enforceable by local authorities, it was normally an offence to apply any waste onto land that was likely to damage the environment. Since 1990 burial on farm has been controlled by local authorities under Part II of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. If carcasses were buried (or not buried as the case may be) in a way that was a danger to a watercourse there were penalties for pollution under the Water Act 1973 enforced by the regional water authorities. ¹³

Impact of BSE on disposal practices for other fallen stock

10.24 BSE undoubtedly had a knock-on effect on the disposal of animals that were dying on farm for reasons other than BSE, ie, fallen stock. Some problems that arose in the early 1990s as a result, including dumping of carcasses on roadsides and in rivers, are described in vol. 12: Livestock Farming. We do not consider this wider topic of disposal of non-BSE carcasses here, but briefly summarise the main points in relation to BSE measures.

10.25 The introduction of the SBO ban in November 1989 and the voluntary ban by the UK Agricultural Supply Trade Association (UKASTA) on the use of MBM derived from SBO in animal feed reduced the value of animal wastes from knackers. While most of the raw material used to produce MBM came from slaughterhouses, some came from knacker's yards. Renderers and animal feed manufacturers were not confident that knacker material would be free of SBO. This meant that renderers had little market for MBM containing SBO, or knacker's products, mainly because few animal feed manufacturers were willing to use them. Combined with a slump in the world price of tallow and MBM this led renderers by early 1990 to stop buying knackery waste for processing and instead they began charging knackers and hunt kennels for collecting it. ¹⁴ At that time, the collection charges were not high, but the combination of the loss of revenue and the imposition of new costs, combined with a drop in the prices received by knackers for hides and meat, forced most knackers to start charging farmers for the removal of fallen stock. Struggling farmers were often unwilling or unable to pay these charges and some sought alternative means of disposal. ¹⁵

Disposal of SBO-derived material via renderers

10.26 As mentioned in vol. 13: Industry Processes and Controls, processing in slaughterhouses was by far the most important way in which cattle were slaughtered and converted into saleable products (including human food) in the UK. Knackeries also converted a significant number of carcasses into saleable products such as pet food and hides. Between them, every year, these industries produced a vast quantity of by-products: in the order of 1,500,000 tonnes of red meat by-products alone, of which 80 per cent originated in slaughterhouses. ¹⁶

10.27 Slaughterhouse and knackery by-products, such as bone, fat and inedible offal, were sold to renderers, who could process them through heat and compression into tallow (the fatty component) and greaves (the remaining solid), which was further formed into MBM.

10.28 The human and animal SBO bans and the later amending legislation regulated who could process SBO and what had to be done with it after it was processed. Under the human SBO ban, SBO could be used for any purpose other than human food, so slaughterhouses could send it to renderers and other manufacturers for processing. The SBO could not be removed from the renderer's premises until it had been 'sterilised' (ie, rendered). The 1989 Order did not restrict what could be done with it once it had been rendered, so renderers were able to sell tallow and MBM derived from SBO to manufacturers of products other than human food, such as the animal feed compounders for non-ruminant use. However, in practice, many animal feed manufacturers insisted that SBO-free material be used when manufacturing MBM for use in their products after the 1989 Order came into effect.

10.29 The animal SBO ban came into effect in September 1990 and extended the ban on the use of SBO in any animal feed. ¹⁷ This meant that a new way had to be found to dispose of MBM derived from SBO.

10.30 In November 1991 a further order came into force which, among other things, prohibited the movement of MBM derived from SBO except under the authority of a licence issued by an Agriculture Department official. ¹⁸ This new requirement sought to ensure that SBO-derived MBM was incinerated or sent for burial at licensed landfill sites. Before this order came into effect renderers had not been restricted in how they disposed of this material once it had been processed into MBM and tallow.