ECJ EUROPEAN Cleaning Journal

Many small businesses are unintentionally operating outside of the law by disposing of their hazardous wastes with general rubbish, but it’s easy to do the right thing explains Barry Dennis, chairman of European waste management event RWM.

When most of us think about hazardous waste, we tend to think of industrial effluents. But in fact, hazardous wastes are most frequently generated in the workplace. From offices to mechanics’ garages, schools to dental surgeries, a plethora of materials are being thrown in the dustbin that can – and should – be separated for safe recycling and disposal.

Commonplace items including batteries, out-of-date electrical equipment, and paints can contain hazardous materials which, by law, need to be treated with care. The risks to the environment and human health mean hazardous wastes require strict controls. The Waste Framework Directive 2008/98/EC provides the European legislative framework for the collection, transport, recovery and disposal of wastes. The directive requires all member states to take the necessary measures to ensure waste is recovered or disposed of without endangering human health or causing harm to the environment and includes permit, registration and inspection requirements.

Society’s perception of waste is changing. Used materials are no longer viewed as an unwanted substance, but rather as an unused resource. Waste minimisation, reuse and recycling now have a high profile and a recognised role to play in wastes management; which is increasingly backed with mandatory provisions. Some of the materials contained in hazardous wastes can be recycled, so disposing of them with general waste is not only dangerous but represents a loss of resources.

The EU waste directive requires member states to take appropriate measures to encourage firstly, the prevention or reduction of waste production and its harmfulness and secondly the recovery of waste by means of recycling, re-use or reclamation or any other process with a view to extracting secondary raw materials, or the use of waste as a source of energy. The directive’s requirements are supplemented by other directives for specific waste streams.

Unaware of laws

A recent survey carried out by the waste management industry found that the majority of small businesses in the UK  were not aware of the Hazardous Waste (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2009, let alone compliant with them. That means that many businesses are disposing of hazardous wastes illegally and without due care. Hazardous waste items must be separated from the general waste stream in order to protect the environment and human health.

Partnering to protect the planet

The cleaning and waste management sectors are intrinsically linked, and as legislation and customer expectations increase, it’s important that the two industries share their knowledge and approaches. An appreciation of the needs of both cleaning and waste management contractors is also vital for facilities managers or indeed anyone dealing with a customer’s wastes.

Separating hazardous wastes at source is certainly something that cleaning operatives can support. Spray cans, oily rags and other similar small, but hazardous waste items should all be collected separately. There are a growing number of waste management companies that collect and treat hazardous waste streams in line with the regulations, so there is no excuse for businesses not to.

Thankfully, hiring a professional contractor to collect and treat hazardous waste can be done at the click of a button. ISYS, for example, produces a specialist application called SWOPS. Designed specifically for the management of hazardous waste, SWOPS provides clients with the ability to track and trace each consignment through to job completion, handling the paperwork transactions, invoicing and management reporting.

Waste and recycling company Biffa offers customers a HazDirect service, supplying a little red box for all hazardous materials. This ‘Waste Safe Mini’ can be collected when required on a daily, weekly, monthly or even an annual basis by trained hazardous waste specialists. The service also provides all of the necessary paperwork to ensure regulatory compliance.

Circular economy

Much of the talk these days in the waste management sector focuses on achieving a ‘circular economy’ which recirculates materials with minimal loss (waste and emissions). A revised EU Circular Economy Package was announced at the end of 2015, encouraging the importance of designing products to last.

The waste management sector is ideally positioned to facilitate a circular economy because of its familiarity with managing different material streams to recycle and/or extract the most value from them.

Trying to eliminate waste may seem counterproductive for an industry that has grown by transporting and disposing of rubbish for hundreds of years – and yet this new outlook is an engine of growth for the sector. To keep materials out of landfill, people are inventing new recycling technologies and are stretching the boundaries of how we think about resources.

The key with any ‘green’ approach to managing waste, is always to separate materials at source. That is, at the point where a person chooses to discard an item, they ought to put it in a bin that preferably only contains the same material. For cleaning specialists, this can bring up a fair few challenges, as waste managers require an increasing number of materials to be separated at source, often meaning a sudden abundance of bins!

New regimes

Engaging staff in new waste management regimes needn’t be time consuming, but is well worth investing in. It’s important to be clear about what separation is required and then to pass those instructions on to cleaning operatives in a simple way. Most waste management companies will supply posters and stickers specifying what can and can’t go into each bin. Images tend to work better than words as they are instantly recognisable, even if English isn’t your first language.

Scientific researchers and waste technicians are constantly coming up with novel ways to recover and recycle different materials. It’s worth speaking with a few waste management businesses to find out what materials they collect locally. If a site is generating specific and/or uncommon waste materials then find a waste management company that will collect them. If the waste stream has value, then the customer might even be entitled to a rebate rather than a waste disposal cost.

What is hazardous waste?

• Bulbs and UV lamps
• Alkaline batteries
• Adhesives e.g. superglue
• Aerosols
• Waste electrical and electronic items (WEEE), such as printed circuit boards, kettles and toasters, and old mobile phones
•  Full or part full paint tins
• Mineral oil (packaged)
• Rags/granules contaminated with oil or solvent
• Oil filters
• Empty containers contaminated with oil.

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