WASTE REMOVAL ADVICE - ANYJUNK

DON’T MIX EMPTY CONTAINERS

OF HAZARDOUS SUBSTANCES WITH

YOUR GENERAL WASTE

Did you know that most ‘empty’ containers of adhesive and sealant from installation work are actually classified as HAZARDOUS WASTE? This means that they should never be mixed with other general waste and can only be collected by a specialist hazardous waste contractor or taken to a specialist disposal facility that is licensed to process hazardous waste.

Jason Mohr, founder of bulky waste collection company Anyjunk. co.uk, explains why the installation community should be wary of turning a blind eye to this issue and how best to address it.

OLD HABITS FROM OLD LAW

Before 2015, the law allowed you to treat pots and tubes of hazardous substances with only small amounts of residue as non-hazardous. The test was whether the weight of the residual contents was less than 2% of the weight of the packaging. If it was, you could ignore it. As a result contractors and installation brands grew accustomed to throwing away finished tubes of silicon and glue etc. with their other waste and it all being disposed of together. 

Jason Mohr, CEO, ANYJUNK

However, in 2015 the Environment Agency issued new technical guidance (Technical Guidance on the Classification and Assessment of Waste WM3) that removed the ambiguous 2% rule. The new guidance states explicitly that if a container contains any hazardous waste, no matter how small the residue, the whole container is hazardous and should be disposed of accordingly.

This reduces both the amount of packaging waste and hazardous waste you create, and should probably also reduce your costs

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HOW SHOULD YOU DISPOSE OF THIS HAZARDOUS WASTE?

If you create hazardous waste, you have broadly two ways of disposing of it:

1. Get the waste collected from the site by a specialist hazardous waste contractor.

2. Put in place a process for your field operatives to securely contain and transport the hazardous items to designated storage sites equipped with hazardous waste bins. These bins can then be periodically emptied by a hazardous waste company and appropriately consigned using a hazardous waste consignment note.

OTHER ALTERNATIVES

1. Switch hazardous products for non-hazardous ones Obviously this may only solve part of your problem, but just as asbestos was replaced with non-hazardous fire resistant alternatives, every day new products are being introduced to the market that achieve just as good an outcome as their toxic competitors.

2. Wash containers out Under WM3, provided a container is 100% empty, it can be disposed of as packaging, and therefore as non-hazardous assuming the packaging material is also non-hazardous. The empty container could then go into your general mixed waste or potentially your plastic or even metal waste streams.

3. Reuse the containers Reuse the containers instead of throwing them away. Rather than buying lots of small new tubes and bottles of adhesive, why not consider buying much larger containers and using them to top up smaller containers used by field operatives. This reduces both the amount of packaging waste and hazardous waste you create, and should probably also reduce your costs because buying big typically works out cheaper than buying lots of smaller amounts.

This all might seem a bit of a pain, particularly when you regularly walk past a skip or skip bag with an old tube of sealant or a paint tin mixed in alongside general builders waste. But nonetheless it’s the law. So if you want to operate compliantly (and avoid breaching your contractual commitments to your customers, employees and insurance providers), we recommend you review your current processes and consider how to change them to remain on the straight and narrow.

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