What kind of wastes is your industry generating?
Identifying the type of wastes that an industry generates is the first crucial step in reducing its carbon footprint.
Not all wastes produced by an industry are necessarily hazardous!
It is possible that your factory or plant produces some non-hazardous wastes, that can be treated to help you reduce your carbon footprint. This process reduces the load on the environment and benefits each one of us.
The Hazardous Wastes (Management and Handling) Rules, 1989, define hazardous wastes to be substances that wholly or partly qualify as one of the characteristics defined here.
In order to find out if your wastes are non-hazardous, you must ascertain that a representative sample of the wastes are:
1. NOT Corrosive
a. Any liquid with a pH less than or equal to 2 or greater than or equal to 12.5, determined by a standard test is considered corrosive
b. A waste that can corrode steel at a rate greater than 6.35mm per year at a test temperature of 55 °C, as determined by a standard test is not allowed
2. NOT Reactive
a. A waste that is normally unstable, undergoes violent change without detonation or is explosive is considered reactive
b. Waste that reacts violently or an explosive mixture with water.
c. It is Cyanide/Sulfide bearing, and generates toxic fumes under highly acidic/basic conditions
3. NOT Ignitable
a. A liquid with a flashpoint less than 60 °C
b. A non-liquid that can, under standard temperature and pressure, cause fire through friction, moisture absorption, spontaneous chemical changes, or creates a vigorous and persistent flame, that is considered hazardous when ignited.
4. NOT Toxic
1) It contains one Arsenic
2) Barium
3) Benzene
4) Cadmium
5) Carbon Tetrachloride
6) Chlordane
7) Chlorobenzene
8) Chloroform
9) Chromium
10) O-Cresol
11) M-Cresol
12) P-Cresol
13) Cresol
14) 2,4-D
15) 1,4 Dichlorobenzene
16) 1,2 Dichloroethane
17) 1,1 Dichloroethylene
18) 2,4 Dinitrotoluene
19) Endrin
20) Heptachlor
21) Hexachlorobenzene
22) Hexachlorobutadiene
23) Hexachloroethane
24) Lead
25) Lindane
26) Mercury
27) Methoxychlor
28) Methyl ethyl ketone
29) Nitrobenzene
30) Pentachlorophenol
31) Pyridine
32) Selenium
33) Silver
34) Tetrachloroethylene
35) Toxaphene
36) Trichloroethylene
37) 2,4,5 Trichlorophenol
38) 2,4,6 Trichlorophenol
39) 2,4,5-TP (Silvex)
40) Vinyl Chlorideor more contaminants in the listed quantities
5. NOT Acutely Toxic
a. An acutely toxic waste is generated from manufacturing processes of halogenated phenols and other halogenated compounds, pesticides and their derivatives, and halogenated benzene under alkaline conditions
b. Containers used for handling hazardous/toxic substances/wastes
6. NOT Infectious
a. Wastes containing viable micro-organisms or toxins which are known to cause disease in animals or humans are considered infectious
For more detailed information about the nature of wastes, please refer to this document:
For any assistance related to the assessment and processing of wastes, get in touch with us.