Overview of European and Netherlands' regulations on airborne emissions from intensive livestock production with a focus on the application of air scrubbers

Intensive livestock production is of major importance to the economies of many countries but is also connected with a number of environmental effects, including airborne emissions. Currently emission standards are becoming increasingly stringent in European countries and the livestock industry is challenged to comply with them. One of the available techniques for emission reduction is the application of air scrubbing for end-of-pipe treatment of animal house exhaust air. In this paper, international and national Netherlands' emission regulations and targets are summarised for ammonia, odour and particulate matter (PM). Secondly, specific regulations on end-of-pipe air treatment technology are discussed in more detail. Finally the role of air scrubbing techniques in relation to Best Available Technique (BAT) is discussed. Currently air treatment systems are not considered as BATs in European Union (EU) legislation because of economic (high running costs), ecologic (high energy consumption, chemical use, discharge water), and technical reasons (unstable performance of bioscrubbers). Although we think that this rebuff is appropriate for bioscrubbers, it might be advisable to reconsider the status of acid scrubbers with regard to BAT.