Miljøprojekt, 1064 – Forebyggelse af farligt affald gennem substitution af farlige stoffer

Forebyggelse af farligt affald gennem substitution af farlige stoffer

Summary and conclusions

Prevention of hazardous waste
Lead
Background and objective
The investigation
Main conclusions

Prevention of hazardous waste

Prevention of hazardous waste with focus on chemical substitution.

Lead

Based on the National Waste Statistics a method has been developed for municipalities to identify companies with potential for prevention of hazardous waste.

For these companies a method has been developed in order to identify and assess the potential to prevent the production of hazardous waste and to minimize the hazard of the waste by substitution.

Three companies participated in the project with testing of methods and tools for the prevention of their hazardous waste.

Background and objective

A general contribution to the waste strategy 2005-2008 is prevention of waste with focus on minimization of the environmental strain of the waste and increased reuse of hazardous waste.

In order for the Danish Environmental Protection Agency to prepare a strategy for hazardous waste, they must know the potentials for waste prevention. The described project contributes to this part of the strategy.

From the discussion paper on waste prevention of the Danish Environmental Protection Agency it appears that waste prevention includes all activities causing a reduced waste formation. Direct recycling e.g. when a product is reused in its original form and for its original purpose (e.g. the Danish recyclable bottle system) is waste prevention. Substances and objects are not defined as waste, until for instance a company disposes of them, and consequently all kinds of recycling internally in a company are covered by the concept waste prevention.

The main objective of the project is to describe a method for the prevention of waste formation.

Based on the substitution of waste prevention the objective of the project is to:

- Propose to the authorities a method for the identification of companies with potential for waste prevention through substitution of hazardous substances.

- Prepare a survey and an evaluation of tools to be applied by the companies to identify specific substitution potentials and process optimization

- Evaluate the possibilities for application of method and tools in practice.

Thus, the report describes a number of methods, which can be applied both by authorities and companies. Three companies have tested the methods.

The investigation

Identification of companies with potential for prevention of hazardous waste:

Based on data from the waste statistics of the Danish Environmental Protection Agency and from the Transporter Directory of the municipalities relevant companies were identified.

Prevention of dangerous waste:

Information tools for identification of the possibilities of prevention of dangerous waste have been collected in the following called the "Tool Box".

In the"Tool Box", the various references have been described and evaluated.

Based on the existing legislation, the criteria of risk assessment have been described.

Company cases:

The companies were visited and dangerous wastes identified. The processes and chemical products causing hazardous waste were evaluated. The companies' potential for prevention of hazardous waste was identified and subsequently commented by the companies.

Main conclusions

Identification of potential companies

Based on the total waste data collected in Denmark, the described method can be applied for identification of waste producing companies.

To obtain the most specific information on waste a, the ISAG-codes (Informationssystem for Affald og Genanvendelse (Information system for waste and reuse)) should be converted to EAK-codes (Europæisk AffaldsKatalog (European Waste Catalogue)). However, not all municipalities are able to identify specific EAK-waste type producing companies.

Prevention of hazardous waste:

The tool box:

Based on the results of the companies, it can be concluded that the information tools in the tool box are applicable and that a screening would be useful for the evaluation of the possibilities for prevention of hazardous waste. However, the amount of available information varies between the individual trades and companies and consequently, the information sources in the tool box for identification of the possibilities of prevention of hazardous waste should be indicative.

Chemical substitution:

As there are no environmental hazard criteria for classification of hazardous waste in Denmark and the EU at present, the classification of the hazardous waste into hazardous and non-hazardous waste is based on the criteria of the Basel Convention.

In order to be able to weight the toxicological characteristics of the substances, the classification contained in the chemical regulations has been used as basis documentation.

The method was applied on hazardous waste and can be applied for substitution purposes both when considering the safety and the environmental properties of the chemical substances.

Company cases:

Based on information from the "tool box", an evaluation of the production processes of the company and the chemical evaluation of applied chemicals, the project was in a position to propose various measures for the prevention of the hazardous waste. The company evaluated the proposals with conclusions ranging from "measures already implemented"- "possibilities to work on with" – to "rejection of proposals due to customer requirements or reduced profitability if the processes were changed".

Project results

Prevention of waste can be effected through alteration and optimization of processes, e.g. reception and reuse of waste, dosage accuracy etc.

Besides evaluations concerning reduction of the amount of waste the project also focuses on the possibility of reducing the hazards of the waste by substitution.

The classification system for hazardous waste does not contain any graduation of hazard. It can be either hazardous or non-hazardous. However, as the Danish criteria for classification of hazardous waste are almost identical with the EU-based criteria for classification of hazardous chemical substances and products, graduation can be made in accordance with the EU-based criteria.

There is not necessarily coherence between the produced amount of waste and the potential for waste prevention. However, as there are no investigations showing the expected potential for waste prevention, the selected types of hazardous waste in this project have been prioritized based on information of registered amounts from the waste treaters.

The report shows examples of a number of tools and information sources to be applied in the search for potentials for waste prevention.

Identification of companies with potential for prevention of hazardous waste

The report describes a method for identification of companies with potential for prevention of hazardous waste. From the information system for waste and re-use of the Environmental Protection Agency (ISAG) five fractions of hazardous waste with potential for waste prevention were selected. To obtain more specific information about the waste, the EAK-codes for these five ISAG-fractions reported by the waste treaters were identified. Subsequently, five types of hazardous waste were selected using specific EAK-codes. From the Transporter Directories of the municipalities, three companies producing hazardous waste were identified using one or more of the selected EAK-codes.

The method is described in the below figure:

Klik her for at se figuren.

A "tool box" consisting of sources from which information on process optimization and minimization of the hazard of the waste can be collected.

The sources, which have been identified, are described more detailed in the report. They are:

The BAT notes of the EU (describing Best Available Technique)

Reports from the Danish Environmental Protection Agency (Reports on cleaner technologies and chemical substitution in the industry)

Catsub (exemplifying substitution of hazardous chemical substances)

The Nordic Council of Ministers (Reports on possibilities of environmental improvements in trades)

US EPA (Reports on environmental measures)

OECD (The environment report)

Trade organizations and employees' health service (Expert knowledge)

Suppliers of chemicals (Knowledge of the chemical compound of the product and possible alternatives)

Chemical substitution:

The report describes a method for evaluation of chemical substances and products to be used when considering chemical substitution and subsequent minimization of hazardous waste.

To be able to substitute problematic substances, the chemical properties must be weighted and compared. The project describes a method for prioritization of the chemical substances and products. The chemical substances and/or products are

given a score from one to five for their health- and environmentally hazardous properties. Substances and products with the score 5 are considered the most problematic, whereas score one is considered relatively unproblematic.

Company cases:

In the description of the three selected companies, emphasis has been laid on the production of the identified hazardous waste. The waste generating processes have been described and the applied products causing the hazardous waste have been identified.

The waste production of the companies has been compared with relevant literature from "the tool box" and finally a scoring based on a risk assessment of the products applied in the production has been fixed.

Surface treatment:

An examination of the company showed a potential for prevention of hazardous waste. The proposed waste prevention consisted both of prevention through process optimization and a minimization of the chemical substitution hazard.

Flexo colour printing:

Two companies were examined. One company applies solvent-based printing ink, and the other water-based printing ink.

Flexo colour printing ink has been dealt with in many of the proposed information sources in the "tool box". It is generally recommended to use water-based products instead of solvent-based products.

By allocating the water-based and the solvent- based product safety- and environmental hazard scores the water-based product also proved to be the best choice. However, as it was not possible to change from solvent-based to water-based flexo colour printing due to the production process the test did not result in prevention of hazardous waste.

The company applying water based flexo colour printing ink was recommended to reuse the colour from the first liter of rinsing water. This may cause less waste partly due to the reuse of the colour and to the reduced content of colour of the remaining rinsing water and may thus be disposed of as waste water.