What is Waste Management

Ultimately, waste management is defined as the overall collection, transportation, shipment, and disposal of other waste products and garbage across the UK or other countries worldwide. The waste management process tends to involve the treating of liquid and solid waste from all areas of commercial and residential properties.

The treatment will usually offer customers vast solutions for recycling items which aren't explicitly categorised as garbage, sewage or trash, such as composting organic matter, plasma gasification, energy recovery, biological treatments or thermal treatments.

Many companies strive to garner as much garbage that can be reused to curate valuable resources, especially considering our current climate. The waste collection process is essential for numerous businesses and households to rid the harmful amount of waste produced and free up the space.

  HOW CAN A BUSINESS DISPOSE OF WASTE?

Waste Management and Disposal

Identify Wastes

The first port of call in the waste management and disposal process is to identify the waste from your industry or construction site. Many waste collection companies provide effective, efficient and safe waste management services to help those with large amounts of solid waste, hazardous waste and recyclable waste. 

Many are responsible for correctly identifying the type of waste your field produces and guiding you towards the appropriate management system to comply with the laws and regulations. 

Recycling is one of the most prominent and effective forms of waste removal and disposal. The processes involved allow us to reduce carbon emissions by not using any harmful substances or techniques to rid raw materials and recover materials, creating new items. In identifying waste, it's best to understand what can and cannot be recycled, for example, plastic bags, kitchen waste, various bioplastics, polycarbonate, etc.

Evaluate Waste

Next, it's vital to evaluate your waste, assessing its characteristics closely concerning its chemical, biological and physical properties. Doing so will allow you to determine how best to manage the materials correctly.  Such waste may include the following: 

• Compostable organic waste, for example, animal bedding, food, and biodegradable plastics.
• Non-hazardous solid rubbish
  
• Hazardous, radioactive waste, such as those contaminated with or containing a radioactive isotope. You must assess hazardous chemical waste, including materials cleaning agents, pharmaceutics, paint, and motor oil. It also involves products that may contain chemicals like thermometers and fluorescent lamps or materials that have been contaminated with harmful chemicals.
  
• Recyclable material, such as soda cans, paper, cardboard, etc.
  
• Otherwise regulated materials, for example, contaminated soil, car batteries, construction debris and asbestos.
  
• Hazardous biological waste with potentially infectious agents, animal carcasses, recombinant DNA, a biological toxin and genetically modified organisms, and many more.
  

Manage Wastes

Sorting/Processing of Waste Materials

Depending on the source materials' nature, there are often many activities for sorting and processing methods that professionals in the industry use. These activities range from highly mechanised, complex, or technical processes to hand-picking, labour-intensive operations.

The method that each industry and profession chooses will depend on a variety of factors. For example, the ease of segregation of materials, the quality and yield of the resultant recyclates and the nature of the waste they collect.

Processing of waste

The recyclates come from the sources such as the sorting operation, the HWRC, Bring Sites, Civic Amenities and various others. Professionals can successfully process these materials collectively on the same site where sorting initially took place or forward it to various more specialised facilities for different treatment.  Furthermore, additional waste materials and recyclables processing can call for discrete sub-industries of recycling sectors and waste management. Some of the materials and industries include the following:

• Metal and scrap metal recycling
• End-of-life vehicles
• Composting MBT (Mechanical Biological Treatment)
• WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) for electric waste
• AD (Anaerobic Digestion)Chemical waste to rid water pollution and other defects
• Emerging Energy Technologies to create fuel/gas, renewable energy sources and electricity
• Wood recycling
• Rubber
• Plastics
• Recovered paper sector

Some of these processes often provide rise to a wide range of occupational health issues, for example:

• WEEE recycling can lend exposure to mercury and lead
• Wood dust
• Bioaerosols

When it comes to operations of processing and sorting, there is usually a helpful checklist and self-audit that many can utilise for various picking activities, especially in fields where hand-sorting is the most used technique. 

Sorting waste

Kerbside sorted recyclables

Commercial mixed recyclable waste

You must ensure that commercial waste is correctly sorted; if not at the curbside, all mixed recyclates can be taken to centralised premises, such as MRFs (Material Recycling Facilities) or transfer stations. They can be officially sorted and processed. The waste stream is often sorted into various components, including WEEE, metals, paper, glass, plastics, and many more, alongside the residual material.

Commercial based waste is generally treated in the same manner as plenty of other types of waste; however, depending on the overall MRF complexity, professionals in the industry tend to incorporate manual picking lines at various stages of the sorting process.

Such allows competent individuals to remove rogue or unwanted materials from the collection with specialist handling and dispose of them accordingly. Many professionals can transport the products for professionals to begin repairing broken items; however, if they are entirely unsalvageable, they are often dumped.

Unsuitable materials or broken items tend to be taken directly to landfills or incineration sites. They will be burnt at very high temperatures or dumped into a big hole that is covered once filled for landscaping purposes and a seemingly 'cleaner environment'. However, harmful or gaseous products may be disposed of through other means.

Industrial or builder's waste

Typically, any form of industrial or builder's waste is collected by knowledgeable waste collectors and delivered efficiently to waste transfer stations. 

Professionals will sort it into groups of component parts before the processing and waste disposal stage. Many of these sites will involve a broad mixture of mechanical and manual operations that will allow the use of MRFs (Materials Recovery Facility).

MRFs are solid-waste management plants that thoroughly process recyclable materials to be sold to manufacturers to create brand-new products and recycled items.

However, it is essential to be aware of the numerous hazards associated with solid-waste sorting operations, for example:

• Hand-sorting with the assistance of a vehicle
• Conveyor belt workstation design
• Musculoskeletal disorders
• Movement of transport
• Personal hygiene on-site and occupational health
• Slips and trips on rough terrain or surfaces
• Loud noises that could be a huge distraction
• Issues with machinery, consisting of maintenance and repair, alongside cleaning
• Fires on the construction site or at collection stations, especially during incineration processes.

Get in touch today if you have any waste that needs collecting and disposed of correctly in Maidstone and Kent. Our experience and professionalism can help alleviate any stress or concerns you have concerning wastage.