Waste Management Act, 1996

Mass balances of specified substances.

64.—The Act of 1992 is hereby amended by the insertion of the following section after section 96:

“96A.—(1) The Minister may, for the purposes of—

(a) determining the extent of, and making available to members of the public information in relation to, the release of substances to environmental media resulting from the use or consumption of any specified class or classes of substance in any specified class or classes of process, development or operation (whether or not comprising an activity to which Part IV applies),

(b) determining, and making available information in relation to, the relationship (‘the mass balance’) between such a release of a substance and the use or consumption of a substance aforesaid in a process, development or operation aforesaid,

make regulations requiring a person who carries out a process, development or operation aforesaid to make such determination of, and provide to the Agency or specified public authorities, or publish, such information in relation to, the matters referred to in paragraphs (a) and (b) as may be specified in the regulations.

(2) Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (1), regulations under this section may provide for all or any of the following:

(a) requiring the person concerned to make on specified dates or at specified intervals measurements, calculations, estimates or projections of the release of substances to environmental media,

(b) prescribing the methods or procedures to be used in the making of such measurements, calculations, estimates or projections,

(c) requiring records or registers in a specified form to be kept by the person concerned of, or in which there shall be entered by him or her, specified particulars as respects the release of substances to environmental media and the use or consumption of any substance in a process, development or operation that gives rise to such a release,

(d) the intervals and the manner in which information as respects the matters aforesaid shall be provided by the person concerned to the Agency or other public authorities or be published,

(e) matters consequential on, or incidental to, the foregoing.

(3) The Agency and any prescribed public authority shall each publish information that has been provided to it pursuant to regulations under this section in such manner and subject to such conditions as may be prescribed.”.