Hazardous Waste Reduction

ThyssenKrupp Services works with customers to ensure ongoing compliance with existing waste legislation as well as assisting with planning for impending and future changes. For example, with regard to the recently introduced changes to the Hazardous Waste Regulations and associated Landfill Regulations we have worked closely with all our customers to ensure compliance with the changes as they came into force.

By taking this proactive approach we not only ensured compliance was maintained but we were also able to deliver environmental improvements and costs savings that were identified as an integral part of our legislative compliance review process.

With one specific customer we recommended and implemented a co-ordinated and focused team approach to ensure all stakeholders and process owners were involved in the review of hazardous waste from production, on-site storage and movement, right through to off-site disposal at appropriately licensed premises.

The hazardous waste review process adopted consisted of four key stages:

  1. A complete review of the hazardous waste streams being generated
  2. Waste stream characterisation exercise carried out in line with the Waste Acceptance Criteria (WAC) for disposal of waste to landfill. This involved looking in detail at the processes where hazardous waste was being produced and identifying the inputs to these waste streams
  3. Establishment of an ideas list of how to address each hazardous waste stream. The list was then prioritised into three main areas: legal compliance, cost savings and environmental benefits
  4. Hazardous waste stream-specific action plans were then prepared and implemented

The result of this process was the reduction in hazardous waste disposal by more than 25%.