What is Pre-Acceptance of Waste?

We already collect this for invoicing and client contact purposes, but it is also used by the Environment Agency to understand which companies are producing which wastes

To understand the risk the waste may pose, for example if the producer is a storage warehouse, the wastes are likely to be pure products waiting for shipment or damaged materials, whereas if the producer is an aerospace company we may expect the materials to be contaminated, for example with metal turnings

This is a regulatory requirement, and we appreciate may be difficult to obtain from third party contractors.  If we ask and aren’t provided with it, we should record this.

This is so we understand how often the waste may need analysing before receipt and when accepted on to site.  The sampling and analysis is to manage risk to the environment and our staff.

This is to protect the environment and our staff as different constituents in a waste have different hazards.  The more fulsome the description, along with constituents the more easily a disposal/recovery can be determined for the waste usually leading to better pricing options and more efficient delivery/handling.

This information is used by the regulator to determine which industry sectors are producing particular types and quantities of waste.  We can help producers determine these if they need help.

Is it solid, liquid, gas, sludge, or multi-phase?  Knowing this enables more efficient identification of potential disposal routes usually offering more pricing options and more efficient handling on site.

Knowing the composition of a waste is key to protecting the safety of our staff and meeting the conditions of our environmental permit.  Additionally, the more we know the more options we are likely to have for disposal or recovery of the waste and therefore more options to offer our client.  Pure products and articles such as WEEE, aerosols, contaminated packaging, unused materials won’t normally require an analysis, whereas production waste, for example a wash water will.  This analysis may be provided by the client, provided it is trusted or provided by us after receiving a representative sample.

The hazardous properties need to be known to protect the safety of our team and minimise the risk of any environmental damage when processing the waste.  If the client doesn’t know these, we can help them assign these to their waste.

POPs means Persistent Organic Pollutants and refer to chemicals that don’t readily breakdown in the environment, you may have heard of one group, that is called PCBs.  If a client’s waste contains these, they must be disposed of in a certain way which destroys these materials.  Failure to follow this guidance could cause environmental damage and result in considerable fines for our client and us.

Establishing these means we can protect the safety of our staff along with the safety of our sites.  If a material is self-reactive it can ignite on its own and be the initiator of a major fire.  Examples of potentially self-reactive materials are organic peroxides, picric acid, aluminium powder, sodium metal

Waste that has a pungent or revolting odour must be handled using particular precautions and disposed of to certain routes that ensure any odour is contained and not released to the environment.  Examples of odorous compounds are sulphides, mercaptans, strong food flavours e.g. garlic, chilli etc….

This assists in pricing the job efficiently and understanding how much operational resource may be required in handling the waste.  For example, 40 x 5ltr of gloss paint may require bulking into a 205ltr drum before despatching from site, which takes considerable time, whereas a 205ltr drum of gloss paint is moved through the process much more quickly.

We protect our staff’s safety by ensuring that none of these materials are present within our client’s waste.  None of our facilities are permitted for these materials and handling or receiving them could have catastrophic consequences.

This is a regulatory requirement but knowing this helps our business establish the resource needed for a particular client’s waste throughout the year.  It also enables our sales team to know when we should expect loads from our clients.