Restrictions on landfilling hazardous waste with high organic content has threatened to make it a problematic waste stream, reports Jon Reeds.
A whole shelf-full of alarm clocks has been ticking ever since the EU Landfill Directive first became law and one has finally gone off for the land remediation industry. When waste acceptance criteria for landfill were introduced in July 2005 and made more stringent one year later, a few problematic waste streams stood out as unable to meet the criteria and lacking an alternative solution. One of these was contaminated soil with elevated organic content which would be unable to meet the 6% total organic carbon (TOC) limit imposed in 2006.
After much discussion, the Environment Agency agreed a two-year derogation for such wastes, allowing temporary permit variations for those with greater than 6% TOC, subject to a number of conditions:
- no viable alternative;
- an agreed waste management plan to show the waste would meet the TOC limit by 1 July 2008;
- operator-generated risk assessments;
- producer assurance that no alternative exists;
- pretreatment of the waste;
- the waste did not exceed a dissolved organic carbon limit of 1,000mg/l.
Two years on, the alarm clock has finally rung. The period in between has seen some use of the derogation and a certain amount of private hostility and suspicion around the industry as a result, although there is no suggestion that persistent industry rumours about illegal tipping were justified.
The Agency was clear about what it thought. “We view this regulatory option as an ‘exception’ rather than the ‘rule’,” said a March 2007 briefing note. “While we have allowed limited use of this option, we intend to reduce this further over time to help reduce our reliance on landfill.”
What really set the fur flying was the fact that one of the main beneficiaries has been the remediation of London’s Olympic Park. With much of the estimated 1.5Mt of contaminated soil being treated by five soil washing machines, an awful lot of filter cake was being generated. Much of this, as it stood, was incapable of meeting the 6% TOC level.
And while the billions of pounds in the Olympic budget may look like money-no-object, the political pressure to keep costs down has been intense. In the end, no less than 16,000t of the waste went to Tripcock Point landfill in Thamesmead, the only suitable hazardous waste landfill in south-east England.
The Agency has been a little cagey about the exact regulatory procedures followed to allow this elevated TOC contaminated soil to be landfilled or how its intention to “consider time limited variations to PPC permits for specific wastes” actually functioned in practice.
“We are aware of four derogations that were agreed locally,” it now says. “One permit was varied in January 2008 to accept waste with elevated TOC. We are aware of eight waste streams that were accepted at the site. Two permits were varied in June 2008 to accept waste with elevated TOC limits.”
The Agency says no applications to vary permits were refused, although it does not keep records of refusals of individual waste streams, only those agreed. But there is obviously a great deal of anger around the waste industry among landfill operators which did not benefit from the derogation and this may be one of the factors which saw the Tripcock disposal of the Olympic filter cake halted last March.
Whether formal permit variations were always actually issued in all cases is unclear. Also unclear was whether derogations were issued to specific waste streams or whether any conforming waste could go to that landfill. The Agency’s Thames Region is not entirely clear on these issues.
“Tripcock Point landfill is the only site in Thames region currently permitted to accept hazardous waste,” it said in a statement. “It is permitted to accept hazardous waste in accordance with the European Landfill Directive. Historically this site accepted special waste streams and this waste stream is of a similar nature. In March 2008, some of the filter cake started to show elevated readings for TOC. The permit for the Tripcock Point site does not allow the deposit of this waste stream with elevated TOC. Once we realised this, the deposit of the waste was stopped.”
It said detailed assessments of the waste and the landfill had continued and it was satisfied there was no ill-effect on health or the environment and that the permit was subsequently being varied to accept the waste. Later, the Region said around 16,000t of filter cake had been deposited at Tripcock Point by March and administration of the permit variation was “ongoing”.
Since then there has been no obvious outlet for the Olympic soil washing residues or, indeed, similar wastes. Following discussions with the Agency, the Olympic Delivery Authority is now reviewing the on-site treatment facilities and accepting the future will be more expensive.
“We’re also looking at a facility with the capability to pretreat it prior to burial on-site,” said a spokesman. “We have identified one and we expect others to provide similar facilities, depending on demand.”
There is plainly some impatience around the waste industry that some operators had permit variation applications in for more than a year and only one obtained a positive result. But the Environmental Services Association is saying little about the work it has undertaken on behalf of its members.
“Clearly, ESA encourages the responsible management of hazardous waste streams,” it said in a statement. “ESA understands that the Environment Agency will only grant ‘problem waste status’ in exceptional circumstances where DEFRA has given explicit approval and where the waste stream in question cannot be recovered or otherwise managed at any other existing facility.”
For a while it looked as if these wastes could become a “problematic waste stream” permanently, with all that implies. But one of the main drivers of the Landfill Directive was encouragement of new treatment options and that is just what is finally happening with contaminated soil – more of a marathon than a hurdle race perhaps.
