S.L. 549.76 Art. 5Interpretation.

In these regulations unless the context otherwise requires:

"authority" or "authorities" shall, for the purposes of regulation

19 of Industrial Emissions (Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control) Regulations, mean the nationally designated regulator, authority, agency or government entity;

"baseline report" means information on the state of soil and groundwater contamination by relevant hazardous substances;

"BAT conclusions" means a document containing the parts of a BAT reference document laying down the conclusions on best available techniques, their description, information to assess their applicability, the emission levels associated with the best available techniques, associated monitoring, associated consumption levels and, where appropriate, relevant site remediation measures; "BAT reference document" means a document, resulting from the exchange of information organised pursuant to Article 13 of

*see regulation 1(2) of these regulations, as originally promulgated. Directive 2010/75/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 November 2010 on Industrial Emissions, drawn up for defined activities and describing, in particular, applied techniques, present emissions and consumption levels, techniques considered for the determination of best available techniques as well as BAT conclusions and any emerging techniques, giving special consideration to the criteria listed in Annex III of that Directive; "best available techniques" or "BAT" means the most effective and advanced stage in the development of activities and their methods of operation which indicates the practical suitability of particular techniques for providing the basis for emission limit values and other permit conditions designed to prevent and, where that is not practicable, to reduce emissions and the impact on the environment as a whole:

(a) "techniques" includes both the technology used and the way in which the installation is designed, built, maintained, operated and decommissioned;

(b) "available techniques" means those developed on a scale which allows implementation in the relevant industrial sector, under economically and technically viable conditions, taking into consideration the costs and advantages, whether or not the techniques are used or produced inside Malta, as long as they are reasonably accessible to the operator;

(c) "best" means most effective in achieving a high general level of protection of the environment as a whole;

"biomass" means any of the following:

(a) products consisting of any vegetable matter from agriculture or forestry which can be used as a fuel for the purpose of recovering its energy content;

(b) the following waste:

(i) vegetable waste from agriculture and forestry;

(ii) vegetable waste from the food processing industry, if the heat generated is recovered;

(iii) fibrous vegetable waste from virgin pulp production and from production of paper from pulp, if it is co-incinerated at the place of production and the heat generated is recovered;

(iv) cork waste;

(v) wood waste with the exception of wood waste which may contain halogenated organic compounds or heavy metals as a result of treatment with wood preservatives or coating and which includes, in particular, such wood waste originating from construction and demolition waste; "coating" means coating as defined in regulation 2 of the Limitation of Emissions of Volatile Organic Compounds (Paints, Varnishes and Vehicle Refinishing Products) Regulations;

"combustion plant" means any technical apparatus in which fuels are oxidised in order to use the heat thus generated;

"competent authority" means the Environment and Resources Authority as prescribed by the Nomination of the Competent

Authority Order, and such other body or person as the Minister responsible for the environment may by order in the Gazette prescribe and different bodies or persons may be designated as the competent authority for different provisions and different purposes of these regulations; "diesel engine" means an internal combustion engine which operates according to the diesel cycle and uses compression ignition to burn fuel;

"dioxins and furans" means all polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans listed in the Schedule;

"emerging technique" means a novel technique for an industrial activity that, if commercially developed, could provide either a higher general level of protection of the environment or at least the same level of protection of the environment and higher cost savings than existing best available techniques;

"emission" means the direct or indirect release of substances, vibrations, heat or noise from individual or diffuse sources in the installation into air, water or land; "emission levels associated with the best available techniques" means the range of emission levels obtained under normal operating conditions using a best available technique or a combination of best available techniques, as described in BAT conclusions, expressed as an average over a given period of time, under specified reference conditions; "emission limit value" means the mass, expressed in terms of certain specific parameters, concentration and, or level of an emission, which may not be exceeded during one or more periods of time; "environmental inspection" means all actions, including site visits, monitoring of emissions and checks of internal reports and follow up documents, verification of self monitoring, checking of the techniques used and adequacy of the environment management of the installation, undertaken by or on behalf of the competent authority to check and promote compliance of installations with their permit conditions and, where necessary, to monitor their environmental impact; "environmental quality standard" means the set of requirements which must be fulfilled at a given time by a given environment or particular part thereof, as set out in national or European Union legislation;

"flue" means a compartment or division of a stack for conveying waste gases from the combustion plant to the outer air;

"fuel" means any solid, liquid or gaseous combustible material; "gas engine" means an internal combustion engine which operates according to the Otto cycle and uses spark ignition or, in case of dual fuel engines, compression ignition to burn fuel; "gas turbine" means any rotating machine which converts thermal energy into mechanical work, consisting mainly of a compressor, a thermal device in which fuel is oxidised in order to heat the working fluid, and a turbine; "general binding rules" means emission limit values or other conditions, at least at sector level, that are adopted with the intention of being used directly to set permit conditions; "groundwater" means groundwater as defined in regulation 2 of the Protection of Groundwater against Pollution and Deterioration Regulations;

"hazardous substances" means substances or mixtures as defined in Article 3 of Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2008 on classification, labelling and packaging of substances and mixtures; "hazardous waste" means hazardous waste as defined in regulation 4 of the Waste Regulations; "indigenous solid fuel" means a naturally occurring solid fuel fired in a combustion plant specifically designed for that fuel and extracted locally;

"installation" means a stationary technical unit within which one or more activities listed in the regulations concerning integrated pollution prevention and control or in the regulations concerning organic solvents are carried out, and any other directly associated activities on the same site which have a technical connection with these activities and which could have an effect on emissions and pollution; "mixed municipal waste" means waste from households as well as commercial, industrial and institutional waste which, because of its nature and composition, is similar to waste from households, but excluding fractions indicated under heading 20 01 of the Annex to Decision 2000/532/EC that are collected separately at source and excluding the other waste indicated under heading 20 02 of that Annex; "multi-fuel firing combustion plant" means any combustion plant which may be fired simultaneously or alternately by two or more types of fuel; "nominal capacity" means the sum of the incineration capacities of the furnaces of which a waste incineration plant or a waste co-incineration plant is composed, as specified by the constructor and confirmed by the operator, with due account being taken of the calorific value of the waste, expressed as the quantity of waste incinerated per hour;

"operating hours" means the time, expressed in hours, during which a combustion plant, in whole or in part, is operating and discharging emissions into the air, excluding start-up and shut-down periods; "operator" means any natural or legal person who operates or controls in whole or in part the installation or combustion plant, waste incineration plant or waste co-incineration plant, or to whom decisive economic power over the technical functioning of the installation or plant has been delegated; "organic compound" means any compound containing at least the element carbon and one or more of hydrogen, halogens, oxygen, sulphur, phosphorus, silicon or nitrogen, with the exception of carbon oxides and inorganic carbonates and bicarbonates; "organic solvent" means any volatile organic compound which is used for any of the following:

(a) alone or in combination with other agents, and without undergoing a chemical change, to dissolve raw materials, products or waste materials;

(b) as a cleaning agent to dissolve contaminants;

(c) as a dissolver;

(d) as a dispersion medium;

(e) as a viscosity adjuster;

(f) as a surface tension adjuster;

(g) as a plasticiser;

(h) as a preservative; "permit" means a written authorisation to operate all or part of an installation or combustion plant, waste incineration plant or waste co-incineration plant;

"pollution" means the direct or indirect introduction, as a result of human activity, of substances, vibrations, heat or noise into air, water or land which may be harmful to human health or the quality of the environment, result in damage to material property, or impair or interfere with amenities and other legitimate uses of the environment; "poultry" means poultry as defined in point 1 of Article 2 of Council Directive 90/539/EEC of 15 October 1990 on animal health conditions governing intra Community trade in, and imports from third countries of, poultry and hatching eggs;

"the public" means one or more natural or legal persons and, in accordance with national law or practice, their associations, organisations or groups; "the public concerned" means the public affected or likely to be affected by, or having an interest in, the taking of a decision on the granting or the updating of a permit or of permit conditions; for the purposes of this definition, non-governmental organisations promoting environmental protection and meeting any requirements under national law shall also be deemed to have an interest; "rate of desulphurisation" means the ratio over a given period of time of the quantity of sulphur which is not emitted into air by a combustion plant to the quantity of sulphur contained in the solid fuel which is introduced into the combustion plant facilities and which is used in the plant over the same period of time;

"small isolated system" means a small isolated system as defined in regulation 2 of the Electricity Market Regulations;

"soil" means the top layer of the Earth’s crust situated between the bedrock and the surface. The soil is composed of mineral particles, organic matter, water, air and living organisms; "stack" or "chimney" means a structure rising above roof level containing one or more flues providing a passage for waste gases in order to discharge them into the air; "substance" means any chemical element and its compounds, with the exception of the following substances:

(a) radioactive substances as defined in regulation 3 of the Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection Regulations;

(b) genetically modified micro-organisms as defined in regulation 3 of the Contained Use of Genetically

Modified Micro-organisms Regulations;

(c) genetically modified organisms as defined in regulation 2 of the Deliberate Release into the Environment of Genetically Modified Organisms Regulations;

"substantial change" means a change in the nature or functioning, or an extension, of an installation or combustion plant, waste incineration plant or waste co-incineration plant which may have significant negative effects on human health or the environment;

"volatile organic compound" means any organic compound as well as the fraction of creosote, having at 293.15 K a vapour pressure of 0.01 kPa or more, or having a corresponding volatility under the particular conditions of use; "waste" means waste as defined in regulation 4 of the Waste Regulations; "waste co-incineration plant" means any stationary or mobile technical unit whose main purpose is the generation of energy or production of material products and which uses waste as a regular or additional fuel or in which waste is thermally treated for the purpose of disposal through the incineration by oxidation of waste as well as other thermal treatment processes, such as pyrolysis, gasification or plasma process, if the substances resulting from the treatment are subsequently incinerated; "waste incineration plant" means any stationary or mobile technical unit and equipment dedicated to the thermal treatment of waste, with or without recovery of the combustion heat generated, through the incineration by oxidation of waste as well as other thermal treatment processes, such as pyrolysis, gasification or plasma process, if the substances resulting from the treatment are subsequently incinerated.