Hazardous Waste Management system

A brief outline of the legislation

The Hazardous Waste (England and Wales) Regulations 2005 are designed to ensure hazardous wastes are not inappropriately mixed, and that they are appropriately handled, stored and disposed of. This ensures hazardous waste does not cause harm to people or to the environment, either immediately or over an extended period of time.

How Sustainability is approaching the legislation at the University

Most waste management practices at the University already meet some of the requirements of the Hazardous Waste Regulations. However, there are a number of outstanding requirements, which the University’s Hazardous Waste Management System (HWMS) is designed to meet.

Who is responsible for this legislation’s implementation?

Responsibility for ensuring the University is compliant with this legislation and facilities are in place rests with Sustainability, however all hazardous waste producers must take responsibility for the waste they dispose of, following the procedures in place through the HWMS.

Work carried out so far by Sustainability, including consultation and audits

In order to design the hazardous waste management system (HWMS), Sustainability has audited hundreds of hazardous waste-producing rooms across the University. Data from these audits was used to produce 55 inventories of hazardous waste, detailing waste types by their 6-figure European Waste Catalogue (EWC) codes. The inventories are divided by department, with multiple inventories in departments with, for example, bio-hazard laboratories or workshops. A minority of departments have yet to be audited or require re-auditing; these will be completed during summer 2009.

In combination, the inventories provide a register of the University’s hazardous waste. This demonstrates an improvement in our understanding of the University’s hazardous waste, and indicates to the Environment Agency that we are able to appropriately manage our hazardous waste.

The wastes listed in the inventories have been collated and assessed in order to design the disposal flowcharts for the HWMS. The flowcharts and procedures required to segregate and store hazardous wastes have been designed to integrate as far as possible with existing systems at the University. It is an overall aim of the HWMS that it should be practical and cause minimum disruption to staff involved.

All of the inventories and the 2 flowcharts were provided to audited departments for consultation in August 2008. This consultation followed on from pervious work with departments, which has been ongoing since 2005. Comments from departments have contributed to the final versions of the inventories and flowcharts provided in this guidance pack. A list of contacts made during each consultation is provided in this online guidance pack

Future plans

In the future, Sustainability will work with departments to identify ways in which the University’s production of hazardous waste can be reduced, using our improved understanding of this waste. This will reduce the University’s impact on the environment, which is a target contained in the University’s Environmental Policy.