Waste disposal legislation - keep an eye on costs

Is industry aware of how much the changes to waste disposal will cost? Golder Associates' Jennifer Boniface and Edward Perry urges UK industry to act now to limit the potential for rising costs.

Is industry aware of how much the changes to waste disposal will cost? Golder Associates' Jennifer Boniface and Edward Perry urges UK industry to act now to limit the potential for rising costs or prosecution, which may be a direct result of changes in the waste disposal regulations.

All businesses within the UK generate waste and most of this is sent to landfill.

The commercial and industrial sectors currently send 43 million tonnes of waste to landfill each year.

This is enough waste to fill the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff 43 times over.

In a nutshell, the Landfill (England and Wales) Regulations 2002 (LFR02) impose greater technical requirements on landfill operators and change the wastes that may be accepted at any particular landfill.

This will impact upon businesses wanting to dispose of waste to landfill.

The requirements of these regulations will require waste producers to fundamentally reassess their waste streams.

The classification of landfill with the introduction of new working practices may force changes to current disposal route.

Therefore, a strategic proactive approach to waste management by waste producers is required to keep abreast of changes, minimise the financial impacts, and avoid reaction to Environment Agency enforcement.

Duty of Care - one of the first effects the regulations will have is the requirement to identify the waste on all waste transfer notes by reference to the appropriate codes in the European Waste Catalogue (EWC).

The Environment Agency has stated that it intends to fully implement this legal requirement from the 1st January 2003.

The main component of the EWC is the Annex, which comprises a list of wastes.

Each waste type is individually defined by a six-digit code and they are grouped together under their respective two-digit and four-digit chapter headings.

Each chapter is dedicated to a potential source of waste.

A waste generating activity may need to classify its activities in several chapters, depending upon the specific processes involved (the EWC contains an example on wastes that may arise from car manufacturing).

Waste Classification Landfills are now classified as inert, hazardous or non-hazardous.

As a result, waste streams that have historically been accepted at a site may now have to go elsewhere as the requirements of the Regulations come into force.

In order to establish whether a waste can still be accepted, businesses will have to classify the waste they produce in more detail to allow an assessment of their acceptability to be completed.

Some wastes will also be banned from landfilling altogether, such as liquids and corrosive waste.

Inert Waste The historically accepted definition of inert waste is now no longer valid.

A series of specific waste types have been defined as inert (Table 1), although it should be noted that other wastes may also be demonstrated to be inert through appropriate testing.

Table 1 Inert Wastes EWC Code Description Exclusions: * 10 11 03 Waste glass-based fibrous materials.

* 15 01 07 Glass packaging.

* 17 01 01 Concrete.

* 17 01 02 Bricks.

* 17 01 03 Tiles and ceramics.

* 17 02 02 Glass (construction and demolition waste).

* 17 05 04 Soil and stones including naturally occurring sand and clay (construction and demolition waste) Excluding topsoil, peat.

* 20 01 02 Glass (separately collected, e.g bottle banks).

* 20 02 02 Soil and stones (garden and park wastes) Excluding topsoil, peat.

In addition Environment Agency Guidance states that the waste must: * comprise single stream materials from a known and reliable source; * not contain other material or substances such as metal, plastics, etc; and * not be contaminated.

Non-Hazardous Waste - is effectively defined by default, as it is waste that is not hazardous or inert.

Municipal waste will be classified as non-hazardous waste.

Hazardous Waste Since the 16th July 2002, only landfill sites defined as hazardous have been allowed to accept hazardous waste e.g heavily contaminated soils, materials contaminated with used oil.

The majority of landfills designated as hazardous have chosen to become non-hazardous when the full requirements of the legislation come into force on the 16th July 2004.

After this date there will be very few landfills that will be able to take hazardous waste.

Market forces will therefore mean that the cost for the disposal to landfill of hazardous waste is likely to increase dramatically.

Companies should therefore look at how they can reduce the quantity of hazardous waste they produce before July 2004.

The EWC can be used to determine whether a waste is classified as hazardous.

Some of the waste categories in the EWC are marked with an asterisk (*).

These wastes are classified as hazardous.

This classification is due to the presence of dangerous materials.

Some of these materials are only classified as hazardous if the concentrations (% by weight) of these dangerous substances are such that they exhibit one or more properties listed in Annex III of the Hazardous Waste Directive, known as "mirror entries".

Other wastes are always classified as hazardous, irrespective of concentration.

Waste characterisation and testing - from the 16th July 2005, before waste can be sent to an existing landfill, a basic characterisation will have to be carried out giving data on the composition of the waste, and where relevant, the leaching behaviour.

This will require a significant amount of extra effort by companies.

For new landfills this characterisation is required as soon as they commence operations.

In addition there will have to be compliance testing, usually on an annual basis, to confirm there have been no changes to the basic characterisation, an on-going cost that will inevitably be passed on to industry.

Conclusion In essence, this new classification scheme may cause some confusion for many industry sectors, however the requirement for detailed characterisation of waste streams is likely to increase the burden of regulatory compliance yet again.

It is best to address this requirement sooner rather than later, since the identification of waste streams prior to their disposal may provide a method reducing the final cost of a company's waste management bill.

In addition, through a greater understanding of this new legislation a company can avoid running the risk of being fined for non-compliance.

This is where an independent expert consultancy will prove invaluable.

For example, Golder Associates offers a range of services that will identify waste streams for optimal classification and declaration.

Without such help from independent consultancies, there is every chance that a company will run the risk of incorrect classification and suffer the consequences of prosecution under the environmental legislation.

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