Integrated Pollution Prevention And Control Research Articles

Comparison of the Three Approaches for Determining Ammonia Emissions in the Intensive Breeding of Fattening Pigs with Respect to the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control: Case Study for the Czech Republic

This study compares three approaches in the monitoring of ammonia (NH3) emissions from intensive breeding of fattening pigs in relation to compliance with the standards arising from the requirements of Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) used in the Czech Republic. The first approach was based on the determination of NH3 emissions calculation by measurement using reduced sampling days focused on the final fattening phase. The second approach was based on the determination of NH3 emissions calculation by measurement respecting the Best Reference Document for Intensive Rearing of Poultry or Pig (BREF IRPP) and relevant best available techniques (BAT) conclusions under Directive 2010/75/EU. The third approach was based on estimation by using emission factors respecting BREF IRPP and Methodological Instruction of the Air Protection Department of the Czech Republic. The results show that the determined emission factors in the Czech Republic may not always reflect the actual production of NH3 emissions even when reduced by the applied BAT. Determination of NH3 emissions calculation by measurement respecting BREF IRPP represents the predominant phases of fattening (refinement) and microclimatic conditions; however, it is time and money-consuming.

A Review: Comparison of Approaches to the Approval Process and Methodology for Estimation of Ammonia Emissions from Livestock Farms under IPPC

Ammonia (NH3) emissions have a negative impact on the welfare of breeding animals, human health, and the environment. These influences of modern intensive agriculture have led to numerous protocols, national regulations, and European Directives. Following previous regulatory measures, the Commission Implementing Decision European Union (EU) 2017/302 on 15 February 2017 has established best available technique (BAT) conclusions, under Directive 2010/75/EU of the European Parliament and the Council, for the intensive rearing of poultry and pigs. This applies to intensive poultry and pig producers with a capacity of over 40,000 poultry, 750 sows, or 2000 fattening pigs. Due to the application of this directive, air emissions have been reduced by between 40% and 75% over the last 15 years. The integrated permit monitors the entire environmental burden of the farm on its surroundings (air pollution, water, soil pollution, waste production, energy use). This review aims to provide a critical overview of how member states (including the United Kingdom) are approaching the implementation of IPPC (Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control) and the conclusions of BAT in their legislation and related documents, and how they monitor NH3 emissions from intensive livestock farming. The data for this review were obtained from 2019 to 2020.

INTEGRATING POLLUTION REGULATION REGIMES: A COMPARATIVE SURVEY OF THE FINNISH AND SOUTH AFRICAN LEGAL SYSTEMS

The South African environmental governance, particularly the pollution regulation regime, is fragmented. Fragmentation ultimately leads to an unsustainable governance effort which negatively impacts on the environment and development in general. In 2000, Finland comprehensively revised the legal structure on which its pollution regulation regime is based. This new regime provides for an integrated environmental authorisation for polluting activities, integrated authorisation procedures and institutions, which result in a more integrated and efficient governance regime. The integrated Finnish approach is based on an European Union framework directive that provides for Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC). The Finnish reforms may suggest strategies to integrate the fragmented South African regime. This article commences by investigating the nature and extent of fragmentation in South Africa. It then proceeds to analyse the European framework directive on IPPC, and then to reflect in detail on the new Finnish approach. It concludes by providing some comparative suggestions to achieve integration in South Africa.

Green textile production: a chemical minimization and substitution study in a woolen fabric production.

This study aimed to decrease chemical costs and increase productivity and environmental performance by applying various practices for chemical minimization and substitution in an integrated textile mill producing woolen textile fabric. Detailed on-site process investigations and data collection studies were carried out in the mill. Process-based specific auxiliary chemical and dyestuff consumptions were calculated. Process and composite wastewater samples were collected at different periods and analyzed. The chemical loads of wastewaters were also calculated. The specific dyestuff and auxiliary chemical consumptions of the mill were compared with the data of a similar textile mill in the literature and the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC), Textile Best Available Techniques Reference (BREF) document. Thus, the chemical saving potential of the mill was evaluated. A detailed chemical inventory study was also carried out in the mill. The material safety data sheets (MSDSs) of 371 chemicals were examined in terms of biodegradation ratio, toxicity, and micropollutant content. As a result, 23 chemicals were proposed to be replaced with environmentally friendly substitutes. A total of 10 minimization and substitution practices were identified for the mill according to the investigation and analysis results. After the implementation of the suggested practices, reductions of 15-32 and 13-37% are estimated to be achieved in total chemical consumption and chemical oxygen demand (COD) load of wastewater, respectively. The potential payback periods of the suggested practices were calculated to range between 4 and 36 months. The employed methodology and the findings of this study may be useful for similar textile mills, stakeholders, and regulators. This study may also provide a road map to the textile industry for their sustainable and green production applications.

Implementing the Shared Environmental Information System (SEIS) and environmental policies in Central Asia

• After almost three decades, the management of environmental information in Central Asia still bears many of the hallmarks of the Soviet regime. It is technocratic, integrated in centrally planned economies, and embedded in a culture of nondisclosure to citizens and the international community. • SEIS is an essential part of the ongoing reform of environmental governance in Central Asia, supervised by UNECE and significant progress has been made in all five countries. SEIS’ development is particularly important for the progress on three environmental policies focusing on public access to environmental data and information. • The Aarhus Convention requires citizens to participate in environmental decision-making and act as ‘informed citizens’. Implementation of the convention in Central Asia still falls far short of the expectations of many local NGOs. Further SEIS improvement could increase the number of end-users of environmental data in both civil society and the private sector. • Implementation of Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM), including the creation of Water User Associations (WUAs) is underway in the region, providing increasingly reliable information on water intake in irrigated areas. SEIS helps ‘citizen science’, which could become an essential tool for collecting environmental data and information in remote regions of Central Asia. • Implementation of Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) is just starting in the region. SEIS can improve the decentralization and transparency in monitoring and reporting decentralization and transparent monitoring of industrial emissions.

Application of LES-CFD for predicting pulverized-coal working conditions after installation of NOx control system

The upcoming environmental requirements outlined at the 2017 European Commission Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) are becoming more and more strict in comparison to the existing standards – IED 2010/75/EU. Questions arise about changes in boiler operating conditions after the adoption of the regulations to fulfill specified emission limits. Of initial concern is the question of which technology to pursue in order to reach the specified level of NOx emissions at 150 mg/Nm3@6%O2. By introducing an air staging technique the NOx limit can be partially achieved; however these changes affect the boiler operation in a detrimental way. In order to investigate impact of de-NOx installation on the temperature and heat flux distribution, numerical techniques can be used. In order to determine the impact of the changes in the boiler operation, this paper presents the application of an advanced, multiphase open-source code Arches, developed at the University of Utah for modeling pulverized-coal combustion using Large-Eddy Simulation (LES). Numerical simulations showed the effect on the boiler's working parameters e.g., heat-transfer rate, temperature distribution, species concentration, and NOx emission before and after proposed modifications.

VOC emission reduction and energy efficiency in the flexible packaging printing processes: analysis and implementation

Volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions into the atmosphere are among the primary environmental problems caused by flexible packaging printing plants. Since 1999, VOC emissions from the use of solvents in various technological processes have been limited by the volatile organic compounds solvents emissions directive, and by directive 2010/75/EU on industrial emissions since 2010. Thus, flexible packaging plants require processing technologies or other solutions to ensure compliance with these requirements. In this paper, combined VOC pollution prevention and treatment alternatives were suggested and were evaluated for their technical, environmental, and economic feasibility. A flexible plastic packaging company that produces over 1920 t/year of plastic packaging for the food industry was selected for detailed analysis. The material and energy flow analysis shows that VOC emissions from the main technological processes reached 112.2 kg/t of production, and a considerable amount of energy (up to 771.6 kWh/t of production) was used. Three integrated pollution prevention and control (IPPC) alternatives of the five analysed in this study were selected and implemented within the company to reduce its VOC emissions and energy consumption. The results indicate that after the implementation of the three suggested economically reasonable IPPC alternatives (replacement of solvent-based with water-based inks; modernisation of the ventilation and lighting system), the VOC emissions decreased to 8.4 kg/t (92.5%) and the total energy consumption for the production of 1 t of flexible packaging decreased to 605.6 kWh/t (21.5%). This study shows that IPPC methods not only significantly reduces VOC emissions from flexible packaging printing processes, but also saves energy and raw materials, and reduces costs.

The recovery of waste and off-gas in Large Combustion Plants subject to IPPC National Permit in Italy

The recovery of off-gas, waste, and biomass in Large Combustion Plants for energy production gives the opportunity to recycle waste and by-products and to recover materials produced in agricultural and industrial activities. The paper illustrates the Italian situation regarding the production of energy from off-gas, biomass, and waste in Large Combustion Plants subject to Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) National Permit. Moreover, it focuses on the 4 Italian Large Combustion Plants producing energy from biomass and waste. For these ones it illustrates the specific issues related to and provides a description of the solutions adopted in the 4 Italian plants. Given that air emission performance is the most relevant aspect of this kind of plants, the paper specifically focuses and reports results about this subject.In particular, in Italy among 113 LCPs subject to IPPC National Permit we have found that 4 plants use as fuel waste (i.e. solid or liquid biomasses and Solid Recovered Fuels), or a mixture of waste and traditional fuels (co-combustion of Solid Recovered Fuels and coal), and that 11 plants use as fuel off-gases listed in Annex X (i.e. Refinery Fuel Gas, Syngas, and gases produced in iron and steel industries). Moreover, there are 2 IPPC chemical plants that recovery energy from different off-gases not listed in Annex X.Regarding the 4 LCPs that produce energy from waste combustion or co-combustion, we find that they take into account all the specific issues related to this kind of plants (i.e. detailed waste characterization, waste acceptance procedures, waste handling and storage, waste pretreatment and emissions to air), and adopt solutions that are best available techniques to prevent pollution. Moreover for one of these plants, the only one for which we have a significant set of monitoring data because it obtained the IPPC National Permit in 2008, we find that energy efficiency and air emissions of the principal pollutants are in good compliance with European coal- and lignite-fired combustion plants co-incinerating waste and with BAT-AELs reported in the BREF document.

The Effects of Green Accounting in the Society

In today's global economy, organizations are increasingly called upon to demonstrate sound business management that includes concern for economic, social and environmental issues. The challenges created by global competition make it imperative for enterprises to continually rationalize and improve all resources and processes. Separation of responsibilities for the processes that underpin organizational outputs is unsustainable in today's competitive environment. On the base of literature review, we assert that recent achievements proved that ISO's management system standards have a global relevance of and a capacity to benefit from the very largest to the very smallest organizations in both public and private sectors. An Environmental Management System (EMS) provides a solid framework for meeting environmental challenges and realizing the above benefits. Most environmental legislation now originates at the European level, where the main legal instruments are EU directives and regulations. Traditionally, environmental regulation has covered the environmental media. From the early 1990s, a more integrated approach has been taken across all media with Integrated Pollution Control (IPC) and, more recently, the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) European Directive. We describe in our research the main types of environmental standards used across Europe and their impact on businesses performance. In conclusion we analyse the future key areas the environmental legislation is likely to be developed in

Building markets for clean technologies: Controversies, environmental concerns and economic worth

In this paper, we investigate the construction of markets for clean technologies by examining the mechanisms through which new technologies succeed (or fail) to be transformed into goods that are both environmentally and economically valuable. We envisage this process as a particular form of market innovation in which new product qualities are inscribed into market architectures. We focus on the market for clean technologies that emerged as a result of the EU Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) directive that required polluting industries, including livestock farms, to implement the “best available techniques” in order to reduce their emissions. Our case study traces a Danish start-up firm's endeavors to commercialize one such “best available technique:” a solution for reducing ammonia emissions from farms. Building on the literature on the shaping of markets, we show that the construction of a market for clean technologies hinges upon the composition of a complex network of actors with divergent, and sometimes conflicting, interests, in which market devices (in this case, a technology list) play a pivotal role. More generally, the paper contributes to discussions on controversies and performativity in market practices and on the construction of markets designed to address environmental issues.

The industrial emissions trend and the problem of the implementation of the Industrial Emissions Directive (IED)

The European Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) came into force in 1996. In 2010, the EU Parliament approves the Industrial Emissions Directive (IED) that abrogates the IPPC directive. This directive lays down measures designed to regulate emissions arising from the activities of large European industries which recorded a constant decrease from 1990 to 2011. This trend refers especially to SOx/SO2 partly because of some technical changes such as the use of natural gas in the 1990s instead of coal and lignite. We can state that the 2008–2009 crisis is the most serious, affecting not only production but also other key economic sectors such as energy consumption. The aim of this work is to discuss relevant topics such as the current situation of industrial emissions in Europe and the trend of the industrial emissions since the promulgation of the directive. We also discuss the directive’s main application tools which are the best available techniques reference documents and the best available techniques that show some weakness. For instance, the “concentration approach” for measuring emissions does not comply with the environment and health problems, because it sets no limit to the production. We absolutely need to improve above mentioned tools if we want to reduce the emission of pollutants to acceptable levels, in spite of the European financial condition. The IPPC aimed at accelerating the reduction trend of the industrial emissions especially between 2000 and 2011. In conclusion, we still haven’t found evidences of significant results of its implementation as the emissions behaviour is also strongly influenced by the economy.

Best Available Techniques Applied to the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry

ABSTRACT Best Available Techniques (BAT) is a principle originally defined in the EU directive on Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC). The overall ambition of the directive is to reduce emissions and impacts on the environment as a whole. The purpose of a BAT assessment is to identify the technique with the best environmental performance among all available techniques for a certain industrial application. Such assessment should also take into account technical and economic constraints. A wide variety of industries fall under the scope of the IPPC requirement for BAT in Europe. The BAT approach is more and more applied in countries outside of EU, and adopted by private organisations as a best practice. In the offshore Oil & Gas industry in Norway, for instance, the BAT approach is now applied to many systems, such as power generation, produced water management, VOC recovery, or, more recently, leak detection and remote sensing. The particularity of the site-specific constraints as well as a lifecycle perspective, typical of the offshore Oil & Gas industry, makes the application of the BAT approach challenging for this sector. Best Available Techniques for offshore applications are therefore site-specific, and require a case by case assessment. In addition, in countries such as Norway, there is no guideline or directive describing how to perform a BAT assessment, which hence needs interpretation and adjustment for each individual application. DNV has developed a methodology for BAT assessments specifically for the offshore industry. This methodology is based on a ranking of the environmental performance as well as technical feasibility, reliability and costs of available industrial concepts. The approach is applicable to various stages of offshore Oil & Gas projects. This paper will describe the BAT methodology for the offshore Oil & Gas industry, and give relevant examples of its application to various systems commonly found on offshore facilities. Challenges and future opportunities will also be presented and discussed.

Analysis of the slaughterhouses in Galicia (NW Spain)

In the last five years, slaughterhouses in Galicia have been producing more than 350,000tonnes of carcass per year (Ministry of Environmental and Marine and Rural Media (MARM), 2013). The main environmental problems derived from this economic activity are the high consumption of water, the generation of waste water with a high organic load and the intensive use of energy (electricity and fuel) (European Commission, 2005). In this region of Spain, there are seventy-one slaughterhouses but only 10 to 15% of them have a carcass production capacity exceeding 50tonnes per day (Casares et al., 2006), consequently needing an environmental permit according to the requirements set by the IPPC (Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control) Directive (European Commission, 2008).The slaughterhouses can be specialized in one livestock type, such as pigs, cattle, sheep, goats or rabbits, or they can be polyvalent. In 2009, the most important meat productions were from porcine, poultry and bovine, as they represented 96% of total production in Spain (AICE, 2011).This paper presents a general view of this important sub-sector (according to the Spanish CNAE, National Classification of Economical Activities) of the food and drinking industry in Galicia. The work considers general information about the activity, an exhaustive description of the industrial process (including preliminary operations, processing, final and auxiliary operations), environmental aspects about consumption and emission levels, and finally a proposal of technique candidates to be BAT (best available techniques) for each process stage. This structure has permitted to obtain an inventory of pollution prevention and control techniques, as well as qualitative data of incomes and outcomes of consumptions and emissions respectively. The methodology, which has already been used in previous works (Barros et al., 2008), has been proved to be appropriate to optimize the process considering environmental factors as well as the pollution prevention and control philosophy.

The Effects of Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) Regulation on Company Management and Competitiveness

ABSTRACTIn the literature there are several studies about the effects of environmental policies and regulations on the management and competitiveness of businesses. Some of these studies focus on the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) Directive, but only a few investigate the effects of IPPC permits in depth. This paper aims to bridge this gap by illustrating the results of cross‐country empirical research. We analyse 225 IPPC permits of companies located in seven European regions and issued by different competent authorities.Results show differences in terms of requirements, emission limit values and monitoring frequencies, which are not always justifiable by the flexibility afforded by the Directive. These differences have different impacts on the competitive strategies and environmental management of companies within the same sector but located in different countries. We explore how some differences could influence company costs, contributing to the literature debate about the effects of direct regulation on competitiveness. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Transferring the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) Approach and Best Available Techniques (BAT) Concepts to Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco

The principles introduced by the Directive Concerning Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) (currently known as the Industrial Emissions Directive (2010/75/EU)) are innovative and have raised interests in the framework of the literature debate on environmental regulation. Many articles describe and analyze the application of the Directive in European countries, but only a few articles focus on how the interest for the Directive’s principles, including the integrated approach, have reached countries outside the European Union. This paper aims to contribute to this topic, describing the experience of the authors in carrying out an EU-funded project on transferring the IPPC approach and Best Available Techniques (BAT) concepts to three Arab countries, i.e., Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia. The paper presents the experience referring to two sectors falling within the scope of the IPPC Directive: the textile and dairy sector. The objectives, methodologies, activities and experiences are described and can be used and valorized to integrate the IPPC approach and BAT concepts in the current environmental legislation of the three countries.

Computer aided estimation of fugitive emission rates and occupational air concentration in process design

European Union directives such as the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) require inclusion of safety, environmental and health analyses in process design as part of strategies towards achieving sustainable process development. In petrochemical and organic chemical industries, which mostly handle volatile compounds, the most significant contributor to atmospheric releases is fugitive emissions that are mainly contributed by piping fittings and components. Fugitive emissions are not only of economic and environmental concern, but also a major source of background inhalative exposure to workers that may lead to various diseases including cancer. More people die every year from occupational diseases as compared to the number killed in industrial accidents. Therefore the estimation of occupational air concentration due to fugitive emission needs to be done early when developing a new process. Several methods for fugitive emissions estimation have been introduced which mostly involve manual calculations. Computer-based tools for such purpose however, are still lacking. Besides, the current methods mainly focus on the emission rates only but not on the process air concentrations. Computer aided methods for fugitive emissions assessment are highly in need, since now most of the design work is done by using computer aided process engineering (CAPE) tools. Therefore in this paper computer aided methods for quantifying fugitive emission rates and occupational air concentration are presented. Three methods are proposed for early design stages based on data available from simple process flow diagrams (PFDs), detailed PFDs or piping and instrumentation diagrams (P&IDs). The method becomes more comprehensive as it progresses from simple PFDs to P&IDs, since more process data are available later, which include plot plan, coordinates of the emission sources and local wind speed. Users however, can choose which method to use depending on the process information available in hand. The methods are demonstrated in a case study of product distillation system of toluene hydrodealkylation.

Integrated environmental permit through Best Available Techniques: evaluation of the fish and seafood canning industry

Abstract Fish and seafood canning industry constitutes a fundamental sector for the economy of Galicia (NW Spain), where these companies represent more than 50% of the total number of installations of this sector in Spain, and they account for 80% of the national production. So, highlighting their essential role in the economy of the region, it is important to foster the sustainability through the responsible consumption of raw materials, the prevention and reduction of waste generation and the use of green technologies. This is a desirable goal at the European Union (EU) which can be undertaken with the philosophy proposed in 1996 by the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) Directive and updated in 2010 by Directive 2010/75/EU. The IPPC policy lays down a framework requiring EU Member States to issue operating permits for industrial installations carrying out certain activities described in Annex 1 of the Directive, including fish and seafood canning industry in epigraph 6.4.b. The main points of these laws are prevention, multimedia licencing, reporting, freedom of access of information, use of Best Available Techniques (BAT), and setting of Emission Limit Values (ELVs). Moreover, the Directive takes into account emissions to the air, water and soil, as well as waste management, resource efficiency and energy efficiency aspects. In brief, the purpose of the IPPC is to achieve a high level of protection for the total environment and the health of people. This paper analyses the degree of implementation of the IPPC Directive in the fish and seafood canning industry of Galicia, in the North–West (NW) of Spain. A methodology is proposed to compare emissions on the basis of emission factors, considering the implemented BAT and their influence on the overall environmental performance of the installation.

Using BAT performance as an evaluation method of techniques

Abstract The European Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) directive compels the more polluting industries to apply Best Available Techniques (BAT) in order to reach an adequate level of environmental protection. In Europe, despite the difficulty of implementing the IPPC directive, there is nowadays an increasing endeavour to develop methodologies for quantitative integrated assessments of pollution, improve the understanding and application of BAT at the installation stage and facilitate their selection for European Reference Documents. The methodology proposed in this article aims at helping stakeholders (industrialists, authorities) deal with the update of their exploitation licence (i.e. in this case, the French technical report). Taking into account the local context of the studied companies, the methodology focuses on the evaluation of existing BAT techniques and provides a general framework for the assessment of production units and management processes. The methodology is carried out as a four-step procedure involving an environmental and risk performance assessment tool and an evaluation grid for the production unit. Each production unit is rated through an evaluation grid made of six levels of compliance with the performance of BAT. The aggregation of these marks allows the comparison to the IPPC objectives. Finally, the applicability of this qualitative assessment has been validated through several metal finishing facilities.

Colorectal cancer mortality and industrial pollution in Spain

BackgroundRecords kept as a result of the implementation of Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) and the European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (E-PRTR) constitute a public inventory of industries, created by the European Commission, which is a valuable resource for monitoring industrial pollution. Our objective is to ascertain whether there might be excess colorectal cancer mortality among populations residing in the vicinity of Spanish industrial installations that are governed by the IPPC Directive and E-PRTR Regulation and report their emissions to air.MethodsAn ecological study was designed to examine colorectal cancer mortality at a municipal level (8098 Spanish towns), over the period 1997–2006. We conducted an exploratory "near vs. far" analysis to estimate the relative risks (RR) of towns situated at a distance of less than 2 km from industrial installations. The analysis was repeated for each of the 24 industrial groups. RR and their 95% credible/confidence intervals (95%CI) were estimated on the basis of Poisson regression models, using two types of modelling: a) the conditional autoregressive Bayesian model proposed by Besag, York and Mollié, with explanatory variables; and b) a mixed regression model. Integrated nested Laplace approximations were used as a Bayesian inference tool.ResultsStatistically significant RRs were detected in the vicinity of mining industry (RR 1.258; 95%CI 1.082 - 1.463), paper and wood production (RR 1.071; 95%CI 1.007 – 1.140), food and beverage sector (RR 1.069; 95%CI 1.029 - 1.111), metal production and processing installations (RR 1.065; 95% CI 1.011 – 1.123) and ceramics (RR 1.050 ; 95%CI 1.004 – 1.099).ConclusionsGiven the exploratory nature of this study, it would seem advisable to check in other countries or with other designs, if the proximity of industries that emit pollutants into the air could be an added risk factor for colorectal cancer mortality. Nevertheless, some of the differences between men and women observed in the analyses of the industrial groups suggest that there may be a component of occupational exposure, little-studied in the case of cancers of the digestive system.

Management strategy for hazardous waste from atomised SME: application to the printing industry

This paper develops a management strategy for the hazardous waste generated by an atomised sector, integrated by highly dispersed small enterprises, considering two of the actors involved: the waste producers and the intermediate waste manager. The strategy is applied and validated in a system where the producers are the Galician (NW Spain) printing plants belonging to a regional association, and represented by a reference plant. The intermediate waste manager is a local waste transfer station. The strategy considers the waste management hierarchy, settled by the European waste Directive, and the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) philosophy. Both elements are combined, and the IPPC philosophy is adapted to the small and medium sized enterprises. The original system, integrated by a printing plant and a waste transfer station, is analysed to detect the Improvable Flows. A series of alternatives, based on the waste management hierarchy and on Best Available Techniques, are proposed to improve the system, and some of them are selected for being implemented. After implementation, the improved system is compared with the original one, showing that, besides reducing the amount of waste managed in the system, a symbiotic relationship between both actors has been settled. In this work, principles established considering big installations have been adapted to sectors that, in spite of being mainly integrated by small and medium-sized enterprises, generate a not negligible amount of diverse hazardous wastes.