The Definitions: Environment, Pollutant, Pollution

In one line

Three definitions carry the whole Act, and the widest of them is the first.

In the wording a student can write in an examination: section 2(a) of the Environment (Protection) Act 1986 provides that environment includes water, air and land and the inter-relationship which exists among and between water, air and land, and human beings, other living creatures, plants, micro-organism and property; section 2(b) provides that environmental pollutant means any solid, liquid or gaseous substance present in such concentration as may be, or tend to be, injurious to environment; and section 2(c) provides that environmental pollution means the presence in the environment of any environmental pollutant.

Why these three sentences decide the Act's reach

Because every operative provision uses one of them. Section 3 speaks of protecting and improving the quality of the environment and of preventing, controlling and abating environmental pollution. Section 7 forbids the discharge of an environmental pollutant in excess of standards. Section 15 penalises contravention. Widen the definitions and the Act reaches further; narrow them and it reaches less.

Section 2(a), environment

Environment includes water, air and land. The three media, named.

And the inter-relationship which exists among and between water, air and land. The connections between the media, so that an effect on one that harms another is within the Act. This is what medium-specific statutes could not do.

And human beings, other living creatures, plants, micro-organism and property. Four further objects, and property is the surprising one: damage to buildings and crops is environmental damage under this Act.

The word includes. This is the most important word in the definition. An inclusive definition extends the ordinary meaning rather than replacing it, so a court may hold something to be part of the environment even though it is not in the list. That is how the Act supports notifications about coastlines, about biodiversity and about eco-sensitive areas, none of which is a medium or a living thing.

Section 2(b), environmental pollutant

Any solid, liquid or gaseous substance. Every substance there is. The definition does no work here.

Present in such concentration as may be, or tend to be, injurious to environment. All the work is here, and there are three points in it.

Concentration, not presence. Nothing is a pollutant merely by being present. It becomes one at a concentration.

Injurious to environment, not to human beings. The harm is to the environment as defined in clause (a), which is much wider than harm to health.

Or tend to be. The definition catches a substance that tends to be injurious, which is the textual foundation of precautionary regulation: harm need not have occurred and need not be certain.

Notice what this definition does not contain. There is no reference to noise, unlike the Air Act's definition of an air pollutant. Noise is reached under this Act as a substance only with difficulty, and the Noise Pollution (Regulation and Control) Rules 2000 were in fact made under this Act by treating noise as within the wide power in section 3 and the definition of environment, rather than by calling it a pollutant.