"As new legislation like the Landfill Directive and Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment (WEEE) Regulations kick in, we’re starting to see a shift in how we deal with hazardous waste. We sent 60% less hazardous waste to landfill last year when compared to 2004, which shows business and industry are adapting to the changes"
Martin Brocklehurst, Head of External Programmes at the Environment Agency
Bristol, England: Six million tonnes of hazardous waste were sent for disposal or recovery in England and Wales in 2006. This is a 12% increase on 2004 - the last year with complete records, according to the Environment Agency. However the amount of hazardous waste sent to landfill fell to 900,000 tonnes - down 60% on 2004 - while recycling and re-use increased to 1.3 million tonnes (up 64%).
Interestingly a quarter of the total hazardous waste produced went to a single treatment plant on Teesside.
Changing legislation
The latest European Waste Catalogue has made changes to hazardous waste classification, which coupled with revised disposal and recovery (D&R) codes, makes direct comparison with previous data difficult.
Some hazardous waste which was previously classified as 'treated' has now been reassigned as recycled/re-used. Changes in legislation – particularly that relating to the Landfill Directive - have also had a direct impact on hazardous waste management, diverting waste away from landfill and causing more waste to be recycled or recovered.
Other changes have re-classified some waste as hazardous and newly hazardous waste includes electrical equipment such as fridges and computer monitors.
Main points
The Environment Agency has identified a number of key points from the data:
- The quantity of hazardous waste that went to landfill fell by 1.4 million tonnes to 900,000 tonnes – down 60% since 2004.
- Recycling/re-use of hazardous waste increased to 1.3 million tonnes – up by more than 50% on 2004.
- Key business sectors such as the oil and solvents industry are producing less hazardous waste
- Hazardous waste from waste and water treatment plants continued to increase - mainly ash from incinerators and residues from waste and water treatment;
- Between 150,000 and 175,000 tonnes of 'newly hazardous' waste was generated.
Fridges are now hazardous waste
Onus on producers
The Agency says that it is currently revising its guidance and enforcement priorities for those involved in the production and management of hazardous waste.
The new guidance puts the onus on producers of hazardous waste to ensure their outputs are properly classified and treated, and clearly sets out the legal obligations of waste management operators to reflect recent changes in the coding, treatment, recovery and disposal of hazardous waste, according to the Agency.
The organisation’s focus of enforcement action will be on those who mis-describe hazardous waste and by the end of June 2008, it is expected that the mixing of hazardous waste during treatment will cease, hazardous wastes with high organic carbon content will no longer be disposed of to landfill and all outputs from hazardous waste treatment facilities to be classified and coded in accordance with the Classification and Coding Guidance.
Martin Brocklehurst, Head of External Programmes at the Environment Agency, said:
“Today’s figures show that more hazardous waste such as chemical wastes, contaminated soils and fridges are being treated and recycled, which is good news for our environment.
“As new legislation like the Landfill Directive and Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment (WEEE) Regulations kick in, we’re starting to see a shift in how we deal with hazardous waste. We sent 60% less hazardous waste to landfill last year when compared to 2004, which shows business and industry are adapting to the changes.
Martin Brocklehurst continued: “In part this increase can be attributed to changes in the rules on hazardous waste. It meant that more waste was classified as hazardous and so had to be handled differently.”
HAZRED and Businesses
Martin Brocklehurst added: “Businesses have an important role in reducing how much hazardous waste they produced. A forward-thinking Hampshire printing and graphics company has virtually eliminated producing hazardous waste from its operations after taking advantage of an EU funded project.”
HAZRED, led by the Environment Agency with EU funding, has over the past three years helped small businesses across six priority sectors, including construction, metal treatment and printing processes, manage and reduce hazardous waste more efficiently.
For example, Greenhouse Graphics, based near Basingstoke, offers in-house commercial design and print facilities and after taking up advice from a HAZRED advisor, they put in to place one of HAZRED’s Hazardous Waste Reduction Plan available online at www.hazred.org.uk tailored to their sector.
Managing Director Ian Crossley said:
“We wanted our services to be the natural choice for those wanting to demonstrate a commitment to ‘greener’ printing. By changing our processes and making small changes like switching to vegetable oil based inks and recycling our ink, we were able to reduce and almost stop producing hazardous waste.”