The guidance published last week (August 5), entitled ‘Storing hazardous waste at household waste and recycling centres', focuses on the health and safety implications of handling a wide range of hazardous materials – including gas cylinders, batteries, cathode ray tubes and aerosols.
Drawing on existing substance-specific guidance and information, the document is aimed at designers, manufactures and operators of household waste and recycling centres (HWRCs), as well as safety professionals who may advise waste management companies.
It was produced by the HSE in partnership with the Waste Industry Safety and Health (WISH), a body dedicated to promoting health and safety in the waste and recycling sector which includes trade associations, waste management companies and government bodies amongst its members.
Measures
The guidance is intended to be used alongside existing risk assessments and covers storage and reception of household waste only and not the treatment of waste or activities such as bulking material into larger packaging.
HWRC operators, according to the guidance, should have procedures in place for each type of hazardous waste handled through from reception to identification, segregation, handling and storage, and if an HWRC does not have measures in place at each of these stages then it should not accept that waste.
The guidance offers individual breakdowns for the reception and storage of: gas cylinders; aerosols; batteries – both vehicle and domestic; waste oils; asbestos; paints and adhesives; thinners, solvents and other flammable liquids; garden chemicals, such as pesticides; household chemicals; fluorescent tubes, cathode tube rays and similar; and, ‘other substances'.
Aware that the operator would have outlined the wastes it can handle in a contract with a local authority, the HSE states: “When setting this contract the safety of the site employees and members of the public should be a primary consideration.”
Guidance
Under the HSE guidance, reception of the waste material is classed as “the first opportunity to control the risk to health, safety and the environment”, with a hierarchy of different reception systems included in the document.
The safest means of handling hazardous waste, specifically higher-risk material, is outlined as a dedicated household waste collection by a “specialist, competent contractor”. In the hierarchy, this is then followed by: Separation into containers at the HWRC site; close supervision and interception of residents at the site; and finally, the picking of hazardous waste by hand by operatives.
Identifying the risk posed by a material is seen as “key to safe management” and the guidance states that operators need to put in place systems, such as clear signs, which will allow members of the public to alert operatives to the presence of wastes such as asbestos, pesticides and flammable material so they can be dealt with accordingly.
In addition, the guidance indicates that each site should have a storage plan, including an up-to-date inventory, that identifies where and what every type of hazardous waste on site is, how it is handled and how it should be stored.
The guidance also adds that there is a duty under the Dangerous Substances and Explosive Atmospheres Regulations 2002 for operators to protect people from the risks of fires and explosions and that in storing material operators need to identify and classify areas where explosive atmospheres may occur. This follows hand-in-hand with calls in the guidance for emergency and security plans to be drawn up for the foreseeable inventory of the site.
And, under the guidance, the HSE also outlines that operatives should have the relative levels of competence to handle potentially hazardous waste and that the operators should also have a system in place to be able to seek specific advice from a specialist with regards to hazardous substances.
Publication of the guidance comes after Defra last month launched a consultation on a proposed strategy for hazardous waste management in England, which is designed to underpin the practical application of the Revised EU Waste Framework Directive (see letsrecycle.com story).
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