EPA Victoria - RD&D - approvals

Works approval is required pursuant to section 19A of the EnvironmentProtection Act 1970  for works at scheduled premises which will, or will belikely to, alter or increase the discharge of wastes or emission of noise tothe environment. This also applies to the treatment and storage of prescribedwastes. The works approval process was established to deal with commercial scaleproposals where industrial process and discharge parameters are well known andwhere there is an ongoing discharge to the environment. Given the nature ofresearch, development and demonstration projects, a different procedure isneeded to cater for such projects that are typically limited in scale,duration and environmental impact. This procedure is known as research, development and demonstration (RD&D)approval and is applicable to genuine RD&D projects. Large projects that pose the same level of risk of environmental impact asestablished commercial scale industrial processes will have to undergo theusual works approval.

根据1970年《环境保护法》第19A条，针对附表所列场所内将或可能改变、增加废物向环境排放或噪声向环境排放的工程，需取得工程许可。该要求同样适用于指定废物的处理与贮存。工程许可流程旨在应对商业规模的工程提案，此类提案的工业流程与排放参数均已明确，且存在持续向环境排放的情形。鉴于研究、开发与示范项目的特性，需采用差异化流程以适配这类通常在规模、周期与环境影响上均有限的项目。该流程即为研究、开发与示范（Research, Development and Demonstration，简称RD&D）许可，适用于真实的RD&D项目。与已确立的商业规模工业流程具有同等环境影响风险的大型项目，仍需遵循常规工程许可流程。