Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution

THE COMMISSION'S REPORTS

The First Report of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution was published in February 1971 and to date, twenty six in-depth reports and three shorter special reports have been published. Of the many recommendations by the Commission which successive Governments have accepted and implemented, the following are some notable examples:

• Statutory powers to control all discharges into rivers, estuaries and coastal waters (Third Report).
• Adoption of the concept of best practicable environmental option or BPEO (Fifth Report), which the Commission has since developed further (Twelfth Report).
• The establishment of the Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee (Sixth Report).
• Integration of responsibilities of different Government Departments for dealing with oil spills at sea (Eighth Report).
• Initiation of negotiations within the European Community to secure the removal of the minimum level for lead in petrol (Ninth Report), so making it possible to buy unleaded petrol.
• Acceptance that, as a guiding principle behind all legislative and administrative controls on environmental pollution, there should be a presumption in favour of unrestricted access for the public to information which pollution control authorities obtain or receive by virtue of their statutory powers (Tenth Report).
• The establishment of a unified Pollution Inspectorate (Fifth and Eleventh Reports).
• Recommendations on waste management (Eleventh Report), release of genetically engineered organisms (Thirteenth Report) and straw-burning (Seventh, Tenth and Eleventh Reports), all covered by provisions of the Environmental Protection Act 1990.