Aqueous waste disposal costs increased by legislation

Historically, aqueous liquid wastes were relatively cheap and easy to dispose of.

An abundance of capacity at  various physico-chemical treatment plants around the UK, where such wastes were commonly "consolidated" with absorbent solids prior to final landfill disposal, meant waste producers were generally spoilt for choice.  Wastewater treatment assets operated by companies such as United Utilities (UU)and Severn Trent Water (STL) also provided inexpensive biological treatment routes for some aqueous waste solutions.

However, the progressive implementation of the EU Landfill Directive and associated UK legislation has changed this irrevocably, with aqueous wastes now amongst the most expensive to deal with.

With all liquid wastes now banned from landfill, and the ban on mixing wastes in pits (so-called "sham treatment") effective since November 2008, there are now fewer sites able to process them.  Additionally, increased wastewater treatment standards have seen UU and STL reduce imports of industrial liquid wastes whilst also pushing-up prices.

Whilst treatment capacity has declined, volumes have risen - partly in repsonse to manufacturing businesses attempting to improve their green credentials by phasing-out solvent based processes in favour of those that use aqueous chemical alternatives.

A manufacturing organisation in Cheshire opted to move away from solvent-based paints in its business 5yrs ago, substituting these with aqueous-based coatings instead.  Wastes solvents that were historically recycled at a relatively modest cost of £22 per 205L drum have been replaced by an equivalent volume of aqueous wastes that cost £45 per 205L drum to dispose of.

The development arm of a UK chemical manufacturing business has experienced a similar rise in costs after adopting the same strategy: bulk liquid waste that was mostly comprised of solvents just a few years ago cost £50 per tonne to recycle into Secondary Liquid Fuel - now, with solvent use on site reduced, the aqueous waste with 20% solvent content costs £120 per tonne to incinerate.

All this points to a fundamental problem with the way in which environmental laws are introduced to the UK.  And this is not the only example of a situation where one set of environmental levers encourages or forces businesses to adopt material changes only for different drivers to then overturn any previously accrued benefits.

Controlling your aqueous waste disposal costs

So, what can businesses that produce aqueous wastes do in order to scale-back their disposal bills?

Firstly, consider if the waste can be eradicated at source?  If not, can its' volume be significantly reduced?  The latter of these will obviously shrink the remaining disposal problem.   Think about ways you might even be able to reuse the waste.  For example, could it be reworked into other products?  Or even used in a cleaning process elsewhere on site?

If you're stuck with the waste and can't modify your production processes to reduce the quantity, consider ways of treating the waste at source to produce a residue that might be suitable for discharge to sewer under consent - for instance, if your waste has a separable floating phase that can be skimmed-off or rapidly settleable solids that can be filtered-out, it may be worth investing in the necessary technology or processes to achieve this. 

And finally, avoid disposing of your aqueous liquid wastes in drums or IBCs and, instead, try to ship them in bulk quantities collected by road tanker - recycling or disposing of any liquid waste in packages is more expensive than the equivalent cost for handling the waste in bulk form.

Case studies

Remsol has helped numerous waste producers to modify their processes in order to eradicate or substantially reduce aqueous waste quantities and costs. 

For instance, by splitting one wastestream into two, a pharmaceutical manufacturer that had historically seen up to 5 tankers of wastewater a week collected for specialist off-site disposal was able to safely discharge 4/5 of this volume to drain, substantially reducing transport and disposal costs. 

In another case, a chemical manufacturing business that produced a regular, primarily aqueous bulk liquid wastestream with a floating flammable layer, was able to significantly reduce its costs when Remsol devised a system for effectively "skimming" off the organics layer and bulking this up on site.  Once separated, the organics were capable of being processed into Secondary Liquid Fuel and the residual, nominally contaminated water could then reused in a landfill reclamation scheme as a replacement for mains water.

Lee Petts, managing director at Remsol comments: "It's very easy for businesses that generate contaminated aqueous liquid wastes to fall foul of the regulatory changes of recent years, and to find themselves trapped by escalating costs.  Unfortunately, the UKs traditional waste management industry does little to help them either, by refusing to offer advice and guidance on how to avoid these pitfalls by focusing on changes to the originating processes," says Lee.

"Here at Remsol, we prefer to offer our customers choice and that means not only helping to ensure that wastes are disposed of or recycled at the most appropriate off-site facilities, but also assisting businesses to lower their costs further by being  clever with their wastes at source. 

"In the last eight years, we've shown time and again that ours is a winning approach that our clients really appreciate.  Bringing a fresh view, being unafraid to challenge existing practices, and being willing to look at novel new ways of working rather than continuing to rely on traditional methods has helped many of our clients to reduce their waste costs." concludes Lee.

If you have an aqueous liquid waste that is costing you too much to dispose of using conventional approaches, why not let us see if we can help you?  Click here to contact us or call us on 0845 123 2544 for a no-obligation consultation.