Notes on this chapter
Recycling of municipal and industrial wastes has become commonplace in many countries. This is driven in part by regulatory requirements, but also by Sustainable
Development approaches which have an inherent acknowledgement that conservation of resources is necessary.
Recycling of hazardous wastes is less widespread. However the economic and environmental drivers for recycling hazardous wastes may be stronger than those for nonhazardous wastes. The costs of treating and disposing of hazardous wastes are increasing worldwide, and as developing economies adopt stricter pollution control regimes, costs there will rise. Treatment and disposal capacity is costly to provide, and any measures which reduce the need for it will be beneficial on several fronts.
This chapter examines some of the on-site and off-site recycling opportunities for hazardous wastes in manufacturing and process industries.
It also looks at waste exchanges, and the opportunities for their use in hazardous wastes management. Waste exchanges are not a new idea, but they have not in the past enjoyed great success. The age of the Internet has had an enormous influence on the speed and breadth of information exchange concerning wastes available and wanted, and made the marrying of seller and buyer much easier.
List of slides
Title slide
Slide 2 Recycling
Slide 3 On-site recycling
Slide 4 Off-site recycling
Slide 5 Secondary raw materials
Slide 6 Recycling technologies
Slide 7 Solvent recovery 1
Slide 8 Solvent recovery 2
Slide 9 Case study: Battery recycling
Slide 10 Case study: Advantages of the process
Slide 11 Waste exchange
Slide 12 Types of waste exchange
Slide 13 Which wastes?
Slide 14 Waste listings
Slide 15 Measuring success
Slide 16 Influences on expansion of waste exchanges
Slide 17 Summary
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Background notes
Recycling
1 Recycling of hazardous wastes can be undertaken through a number of technologies, some of which are commonplace and low cost.
2 Investment in recycling technologies for hazardous wastes increases in parallel with awareness of pollution and introduction of control measures. As controls are put in place for managing the waste, the costs of recycling technologies are compared with treatment and disposal costs rather than free dumping.
3 Some industrial sectors have already identified and developed methods for recovering value from their waste stream. That knowledge needs to be widely disseminated in industrialising countries to avoid reinventing the wheel.
4 Controls on recycling facilities must ensure that the process is genuine recycling and not an excuse to avoid the restrictions on hazardous waste treatment and disposal facilities. The Basel Convention’s controls on the transboundary shipment of wastes, now adopted by 146 countries, were prompted by shipments of wastes to developing countries with false claims of ‘recycling’ to cover widespread dumping. (See also
Chapter 3.2
Transboundary movement control)
Waste exchange
5 Waste exchange can potentially maximise off-site recycling opportunities.
6 A great deal has been learned about the establishment and operation of waste exchanges. In the past many have failed, partly for financial reasons but also for geographic reasons - where their area of operation was constrained, matching industries
(generators and recyclers) for the exchange of waste was difficult. National listings to which local and regional exchanges have access provide a solution to this.
7 There are also sometimes regulatory constraints on hazardous waste exchange, where the liability for the hazard remains with the generator even after the exchange has take place.
8 In the USA, the value of publicly funded waste exchanges has been favourably compared to the costs of other publicly funded re-use and recycling efforts.
Sources of further information
Hazardous waste recycling guide Wisconsin Dept of Natural Resources www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/caer/cea/publications/pubs/wa_189.htm
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Lund, HF & Ruckelshaus, WD (2000) McGraw-Hill Recycling Handbook McGraw-Hill
ISBN 00-7039-156-4
US EPA (1994) Review of industrial waste exchanges (includes profiles and funding mechanisms) http://es.epa.gov/program/iniative/waste/wexrev.html
Web sites
US EPA Office of Solid Waste www.epa.gov/epaoswer/osw/hazwaste.htm
Dutch Waste Exchange www.reststoffenbeurs.nl
Russian waste exchange www.wastex.ru
Australian Industrial Waste Exchange network http://cause.curtin.edu.au/curtin/environment/iwe.html
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