Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of filter bags in waste incinerators in safely capturing pollutants (a) PM 0.1 and (b) PM1.

Bag filters are recognised by the European Best Available Techniques (BAT) reference notes (BREF notes) to be one of the best techniques for abating dust emissions from incinerators, where dust means particulate matter of all sizes, including PM_1.0 and PM_0.1. This is reflected in both the current BREF note for Waste Incineration, and the final draft of the new BREF note which is due to be published later this year.

In addition to a requirement to use BAT to abate their dust emissions, operators of all incinerators are required to carry out air quality modelling as part of their application for an environmental permit, which is then checked and assessed by the Environment Agency to ensure that the plant will not have an unacceptable impact on the environment or human health. This includes modelling to determine the highest concentration of ground-level PM₁₀ and PM_2.5 concentrations. PM₁₀ means all particulate matter with a diameter of 10 micrometres (μm) or less, and PM_2.5 means 2.5 μm or less. Therefore both PM₁₀ and PM_2.5 include PM₁ and PM_0.1.