Managing your Hazardous Waste

Posted: Feb 11, 2016

Waste is considered to be hazardous when it might be harmful to human health or the environment. As well as chemicals, oil and asbestos, hazardous waste also includes materials such as waste electrical equipment which contain potentially harmful components such as cathode ray tubes or energy-saving light bulbs and printer cartridges.

If your business produces hazardous waste you must comply with legal obligations that control how you store, transport, treat and dispose of it.

This guide explains what hazardous waste is and what you need to do to comply with your legal responsibilities. It also suggests measures that you can take to reduce the amount of hazardous waste that you produce, which can save you money on disposal costs and reduce your impact on the environment.

What is hazardous waste?

Waste is defined as hazardous if it is classified as hazardous in the European Waste Catalogue (or List of Wastes). Generally, waste is hazardous if it, or the materials or substances it contains, are harmful to human health or the environment.

Examples of hazardous waste

Almost all businesses will produce some hazardous waste. Typical examples include waste:

asbestos

chemicals, eg brake fluid and printer toner

electrical equipment with potentially harmful components such as cathode ray tubes, eg

computer monitors and televisions

fluorescent light tubes and energy-saving light bulbs

vehicle and other lead-acid batteries

oils (except edible oils), eg engine oil

refrigerators containing ozone-depleting substances

solvents, eg aerosols

pesticides

Check if your waste is hazardous

Hazardous waste is defined by the European Waste Catalogue (EWC). The EWC has a six-digit code for all types of waste. Hazardous waste is identified in the EWC with an asterisk.

The EWC contains two kinds of hazardous waste entry:

'Absolute' entries are always hazardous. Examples include waste from the manufacture of

specified acids, inorganic wood preservatives, and nickel cadmium batteries.

'Mirror' entries are only considered hazardous if they contain a certain hazardous

component, or more than a specified amount of a hazardous substance. Examples include

some wastes containing arsenic or mercury or displaying hazardous properties such as

flammability.

Many non-hazardous waste entries may also form part of a mirror entry. If this is the case you need to consider whether your waste contains hazardous components before you use a non-hazardous waste code.

Check your safety data sheets

If you receive materials or chemicals at your site, they should be accompanied by a safety data sheet. The information on the safety data sheet can help you decide if your waste is hazardous, provided the chemicals have not changed due to being used or mixed with other substances.

If you are unsure whether your waste is hazardous, you should contact the Environment Agency or a specialist waste management contractor.

Producing and storing hazardous waste

All businesses that produce waste have a duty of care to make sure that it is handled and stored safely. If the waste is hazardous, extra controls apply.

Register your premises with the Environment Agency

If you produce or hold 500 kilograms or more of hazardous waste in any 12-month period you must register your premises with the Environment Agency.

When registered, you will be given a unique premises code. You need this code to allow someone to legally collect your hazardous waste. The code is valid for 12 months from the date you register. You can renew your registration up to one month before it expires.

If you own multiple premises you must register each site individually. If you have multiple buildings on the same premises these only require one registration provided they are part of the same business.

If you produce small amounts of waste at different customer premises, you may be able to remove their waste as a mobile service using your own premises registration. You will still need to use consignment notes.

If you share premises with other waste-producing businesses, each business must be registered separately.

You can register or renew your premises online for 18, by phone for 23 or using a paper form for 28. You can register in bulk - up to 2,000 premises at a time.

When registering, you will need to know your Standard Industrial Classification code number. You'll also need your Companies House number if you're a limited company.

How much hazardous waste you can store

You can store waste securely on the site where it was produced for up to 12 months without an environmental permit while you wait for it to be collected.

You can temporarily store waste produced on another site that you operate if you comply with the following conditions:

the waste is stored for no longer than three months

no more than 50 cubic metres of non-liquid waste is stored at any one time

the total quantity of liquid waste stored at any one time does not exceed 1,000 litres

If you cannot meet these conditions, you will need an environmental permit from the Environment Agency.

How to store hazardous waste

If you keep hazardous waste on your premises, even for a short period of time, you must:

ensure that it is stored safely and securely to prevent pollution

ensure that it is packaged and labelled correctly

keep different types of hazardous waste separate

keep hazardous and non-hazardous waste separate

keep liquid hazardous waste in a dedicated area, with a bund or barrier to contain spills and

leaks

regularly check storage areas for leaks, deteriorating containers or other potential risks

display written instructions for storing and disposing of each type of hazardous waste

maintain an inventory of the hazardous wastes kept on your premises, and where they are

stored - this will help the emergency services to deal with any incident effectively and safely

You must assess risks posed by any hazardous substances that you store on your site, including hazardous waste, and take steps to control those risks.

Train your staff

Make sure your staff are properly trained to deal with spills of the hazardous materials that you store on your premises. This should include instructions on what to do if there is a spill, the type of personal protection equipment required and how to correctly dispose of contaminated clean-up materials.

Moving and transferring hazardous waste

All businesses that produce waste have a duty of care to make sure that it is handled safely and transported in compliance with the law. If the waste is hazardous, extra controls apply. If you produce or hold 500 kilograms or more of hazardous waste in any 12-month period you must register your premises with the Environment Agency.

Moving hazardous waste

Make sure all hazardous waste is:

transported by a registered or exempt waste carrier

accompanied by a consignment note (there are only a few exceptions where consignment

notes are not required)

sent to a facility that holds a suitable environmental permit or a registered exemption that

authorises them to take that type of waste for the activity they intend

Before moving hazardous waste, you should evaluate the recycling, recovery and disposal options available for the waste you produce.

Use consignment notes when moving hazardous waste

When you move hazardous waste from your premises it must be accompanied by a consignment note. This includes moving it to any other site that you may operate. The waste must be accompanied by a consignment note until it reaches its final destination. You must keep a copy of all consignment notes for three years. There are only a very few exceptions where consignment notes are not needed.

Your waste carrier can use single or multiple collection forms. When waste is moved by more than one carrier you need to use a carrier's schedule, which you can get from the Environment Agency, or you can produce your own.

From 28 September 2011, you will have to include new information in part D of your consignment notes to declare that you have applied the waste management hierarchy for dealing with your waste. This means you must consider reusing or recycling your waste before deciding to dispose of it.

Meet carriage of dangerous goods requirements

If you transport hazardous waste you must comply with controls on the carriage of dangerous goods.

Treating and disposing of hazardous waste

If your business produces hazardous waste, you must make sure that it is disposed of or treated by an appropriate facility. You must not treat your own hazardous waste unless you are authorised to do so, and have the required in-house skills and facilities.

Some hazardous waste such as solvents, waste oils and metals can be recovered and recycled. Some hazardous waste can be incinerated, usually with other fuels, to generate power. Specialist incinerators for the most difficult hazardous wastes work at extremely high temperatures and have strict emission controls.

Treating hazardous waste

Treatment involves physical, thermal, chemical or biological processes (including sorting) that change the characteristics of waste in order to:

reduce its volume

reduce its hazardous nature

make it easier to handle

make it easier to recover

Diluting hazardous waste by mixing it with non-hazardous materials doesn't qualify as treatment. If hazardous waste is mixed in this way it must still be classified and managed as hazardous waste, or separated when it is safe to do so.

Mixing different categories of hazardous waste, or hazardous waste with non-hazardous waste or non-waste, is only allowed in certain circumstances and always requires a permit.

Disposing of hazardous waste

You must only dispose of hazardous waste at authorised sites. You should try to reduce and recycle your hazardous waste before sending it for disposal. Make sure that your waste is transported by a registered or exempt waste carrier.