Environmental permits

Although small waste oil burners (SWOB) have been used for many years in garages to burn waste oils for heating, there have been recent changes to environmental permitting legislation which mean that all waste incineration and co-incineration plants burning waste oil fall under Chapter IV of the Industrial Emissions Directive (IED). In order to continue to burn waste oil in a SWOB after 31 March 2016 it is necessary to have a permit under Schedule 13A of the Environmental Permitting (England & Wales) Regulations 2010.

The IED replaced the Waste Incineration Directive and places stringent operating, monitoring and reporting requirements upon any technical unit, irrespective of its size or capacity, in which waste is incinerated or co-incinerated.

In practical terms, operators of small heaters burning waste oil in garages are, from 1 April 2016, no longer be permitted to burn waste oil in such devices unless the operator obtains the necessary permit in accordance with Schedule 13A of the Environmental Permitting Regulations and meets the requirements of the IED. The application fee for a Schedule 13A permit is currently £3218 with an ongoing annual fee of £1,384. Permits issued by Swindon Borough Council under the Environmental Permitting Regulations before 1 April 2016 are no longer valid. 

These changes mean that it is unlikely to be cost effective to operate a SWOB using waste oil. Alternatively garages could continue to use their SWOB using non-waste fuel such as kerosene, gas oil or fuel oil instead of waste oil, in which case no environmental permit would be required.