Under Chapter III of the Water Industry Act 1991, you need to have permission to legally discharge any trade effluent into the public sewer. Many industries, as a result of their business operations and processes, produce liquid waste, that passes to public sewers. This can result from many industries, such as chemical manufacturing, engineering, power stations, food and drink production, as well as from everyday essential services such as hospitals and local authorities.
This is classed as ‘trade effluent’, which is any wastewater, other than domestic or surface water, discharged from a process or activity carried out by a commercial or industrial customer. Before trade effluent may be discharged into the sewage system, there are enforceable conditions applied that control its volume and quality. All wastewater entering the public sewer is carried to the local water recycling works to be treated, cleaned and safely returned to the environment.
Therefore, controls need to be in place to ensure that the receiving water treatment works can effectively treat the effluent, to ensure that it doesn’t adversely affect the water recycling process. For this reason, trade effluent is heavily regulated to guarantee that the environment, public health and treatment works are protected.
