Wolverhampton Waste Disposal Legislation
With the large quantity of legislation information available it can often be confusing for companies to be aware of the best method to handle their lamp disposal needs. If you want expert advice on how deal with your business’ waste, call our friendly team today.
In this page Wolverhampton Waste Management have compiled all the applicable legislations into one quick and easy guide.
Why are lamps classified as hazardous waste?
Environmental Protection Act 1990
The Control of Pollution Regulations 1989
Waste Management Licensing Regulations 1994
The Landfill Directive
The WEEE Directive
The RoHS Directive
Fluorescent tubes, gas discharge and end of life lamps containing mercury are now classified as hazardous waste. There is enough mercury in a single fluorescent tube to contaminate up to 30,000 litres of drinking water. Consider exactly how many lamps and tubes you use and imagine how much damage they could cause to the environment when disposed of incorrectly. A quick call to Wolverhampton Waste Management will solve this problem forthwith!
Environmental Protection Act 1990 (Section 34: Duty of Care)
The External Duty of Care places a legal obligation on the producers of Restricted Waste. This aims to prevent another man committing an offence by depositing, disposing or retrieval of controlled waste without a waste management license. This means that managed waste has to be transferred only to authorised bodies including licensed waste carriers, holders of waste management permits, etc. A written description called a Controlled Waste Transfer Note is transferred between the two parties when waste is transferred and this must be kept by both parties for 3 years.
The Control of Pollution (Amendment) Regulations 1989
Requires that anyone transporting waste, which is not their own waste, must register with the Environment Agency which you will be mindful prices approx 117 for three years. The suggestions from the Environment Agency is as follows:
Electrical contractors, wholesalers or manufacturers who have contracts in place with their customers for the supply of new lamps and the removal lamps from the client’s sites could assert that the possession of the lamps is kept by the electric lamp supplier. Under this case the electrical contractor, wholesaler or manufacturer is officially allowed to transport his own waste without being a licensed waste carrier.
Waste Management Licensing Regulations 1994
Any site where waste is deposited or stored other than the site where it’s created ought to be licensed under these regulations. Yet there are exemptions available under specific scenarios. Schedule 3 – Exemption 40- (1) allows:
The storage of non-liquid waste at any place aside from the premises where it’s produced if: (a) it’s stored in a safe container or containers, (b) doesn’t at any time exceed 50 cubic metres in total and is not kept for a period longer than 3 months.
The individual keeping the waste is whoever owns the container or has the consent of the owner;
The position where it’s being stored is not a site designed or adapted for the reception of waste with a view to its being disposed of or recovered elsewhere; and
Such storage is incidental to the collection or transfer of the waste.
The Landfill Directive
Now in the UK, under the Landfill Directive, we now have three types, (1) Being Inert; (2) Non Hazardous; and the most serious (3) Being Hazardous. Lamps and tubes containing mercury can just be taken to hazardous sites of which there are about 10 with this categorisation, a lot of these sites are situated in the North of England.
The amount of landfill sites licensed to take specific waste was reduced from 250 to 10 in the summer of 2004 hence reducing the dumping of lamps in the current method. These sites have been placed under much more strict guidelines so as to massively decrease the quantity of hazardous waste being placed in landfill. The websites that are still competent to manage lamps will undoubtedly charge more and insist on the lamp waste being crushed to reduce the volume, which in itself is as pricey as recycling and not seen as “Best Practise”.
The WEEE Directive
The Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment (WEEE) Directive was passed in February 2003 and came into effect in 2004. It sets a target of 80% recycling of all UK lamps containing mercury. Now in the United Kingdom only 5% of lamps are being recycled and the remaining 95 million are now to be tackled.
The directive insists that the mercury content in a lamp is treated and therefore can only be done by distilling the phosphor for 14-16 hours, which means recycling, is the sole alternative for end of life lamps.
There might be an introduction of a “visible fee” from the producers who are now responsible for providing a remedy for lamps. The producers current propositions are to charge a small fee when lamps are purchased so that domestic waste from homes can take the lamp to a Civic Amenity site at their council (who generally only permit householders to deposit waste) and for no additional fee they will take this waste flow and pass it on to the recycling companies.
In case of companies this “visible fee” will just offer a contribution towards the recycling prices and will not for example pay anything towards the collection of lamps from your sites or the containers, which the lamps are stored in. Added organizations or existing organizations will provide this service.
The RoHS Directive
The Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive (effective from August 04) has already been passed and it prohibits the substance which makes our opponents cringe, the mercury. Our in house distiller was purposely purchased and installed to comfortably control this issue for our customers. All of the phosphor in lamps collected will be distilled in house (so you can visit and execute a waste trail audit for your duty of care review) and the mercury is returned to industry for reuse.