Hazardous waste

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hazardous waste ( English hazardous waste ) are waste materials having specified hazardous characteristics and thus a risk to the health and / or the environment represent. Another common term for such waste is hazardous waste .

term

European Union

For the purposes of a common recycling law, it was defined by the Council Directive of December 12, 1991 on hazardous waste (91/689 / EEC) according to criteria of the origin of the waste, its material composition and particular hazard. The subsequent Directive 2008/98 / EC on waste ( Waste Framework Directive ) now defines it in Art. 3 No. 2 as waste that has at least one of the particularly dangerous properties listed in Annex III, e.g. explosive, highly flammable, carcinogenic, is corrosive, infectious or ecotoxic.

Decisive for the more detailed description and classification is above all the Waste Catalog (EWC), known before 2002 as the European Waste Catalog (EAK), which was implemented in national law in Germany with the regulation on the European Waste Catalog ( Waste Catalog ) and in Austria with the waste catalog is. However, the Waste Framework Directive allows member states under certain conditions to consider other types of waste as hazardous or not to consider them as such.

International

For its regulatory purposes of (cross-border) waste shipment, the Basel Convention defines it independently using lists that, as later in the EU, are linked to the origin and material composition of the waste, but follow a reverse rule-exception relationship: only if the waste is none has the aforementioned hazardous properties (and is also not considered hazardous in an affected Contracting State), it is not to be regarded as hazardous waste. It was implemented or ratified in Germany with the Waste Shipment Act and in Switzerland with the Ordinance on the Movement of Waste (VeVA).

In Switzerland, the term hazardous waste is used, which is defined as "waste whose environmentally compatible disposal requires extensive special technical and organizational measures due to its composition, its chemical-physical or biological properties even in domestic traffic".

The illegal disposal and the forbidden trade in hazardous waste have been recognized by international bodies such as the G8 , EU , Interpol and the United Nations Environment Program as environmental crime .

Germany

Legal regulation

While all waste had to be monitored for disposal , the hazardous waste types marked with an asterisk (*) in the waste directory at that time were designated as requiring special monitoring , which also explained the function and effect of this categorization. Like European law, the Recycling Management Act now only speaks of hazardous waste , whose disposal and monitoring are subject to special requirements. Regardless of whether these substances are to be recycled or disposed of, this classification regularly triggers stricter obligations for their transport, collection, treatment or storage, including their documentation. These affect all owners, producers, transporters, operators of waste facilities and other people who deal with it and are therefore subject to special environmental and immission control official monitoring. According to the Evidence Ordinance, hazardous waste may regularly only be transported to a facility that is approved for this purpose and whose operator specifically, after prior notification by the producer or previous owner and after official confirmation of the admissibility of the intended disposal route by a carrier who carries the special accompanying documents had certified to accept these substances. Dealers or brokers, collectors and carriers of hazardous waste require an official permit. Business owners must also demonstrate special technical and specialist knowledge.

Evidence of the proper disposal of hazardous waste has been carried out since April 1, 2010 using the electronic waste record procedure ( eANV ) in accordance with the Ordinance on Evidence .

Considering its dangerousness, hazardous waste can be sent to a recovery or disposal process. For some dangerous substances (e.g. PCB ), however, above a specified concentration, priority is given to disposal, so that recycling is excluded. Hazardous waste includes B. used solvents , acids , alkalis , paint sludge, old pesticides , sometimes hospital waste, laboratory chemicals, filter dust and substances with heavy metal contamination .

Anyone who handles or tries to handle the types of waste named in Section 326 of the Criminal Code with a particular risk potential without authorization or in accordance with a procedure other than the prescribed one will be punished with imprisonment or a fine even in the case of negligence; even if the danger does not have an effect. However - which is a special feature of German criminal law - he has the chance to earn himself exemption from or mitigation through active engagement in the subsequent fight against threats. The term "hazardous waste" is not used here and the definition differs from that in waste law, but is largely based on it in practice. It is problematic, for example, when hazardous waste is not sent to the prescribed disposal companies and recycling methods, but instead is redeclared as a non-(particularly) dangerous type of waste and given to the innocent and thus cloaked into commercial traffic.

South rail

In mid-April 2012, the state of Baden-Württemberg , represented by Environment Minister Franz Untersteller ( Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen Baden-Württemberg ), signed a cooperation agreement with the companies Sonderabfallentsorgung Bayern GmbH (GSB) and Hessische Industriemüll GmbH (HIM) for the disposal of combustible hazardous waste such as Old paint and solvents etc. from the country. The contract includes quotas of 10,000 tons (t) of hazardous waste each for incineration in Bavaria and Hesse ; that is approx. 40% of the incinerable hazardous waste of approx. 48,000 t annually in Baden-Württemberg. In return, Bavaria and Hesse can dispose of hazardous waste that has to be disposed of in the Baden-Württemberg special waste landfill Billigheim and in the former Bad Friedrichshall salt mine of Südwestdeutsche Salzwerke AG in Bad Friedrichshall . The obligation to deliver 20,000 t of hazardous waste per year from the disposal contract concluded in 1997 with the AVG waste recycling company in the city ​​of Hamburg could never be fulfilled: from today's perspective, however, it prevented unnecessary investments of around 500 million euros in two in the 1990s Kehl und Böblingen planned and at the time very controversial hazardous waste incineration plants . At that time, it was assumed that there would be hazardous waste volumes of up to 100,000 t per year in Baden-Württemberg alone.

Scandals

In the 1980s, the Münchehagen hazardous waste dump in the Nienburg district became known nationwide when toxic substances such as the dioxin TCDD were found in high concentrations.

In May 1992 the environmental organization Greenpeace uncovered the displacement of 2000 tons of old pesticides from Germany to Romania . It was not until March 1993 that a return campaign began under the then Federal Environment Minister Klaus Töpfer to dispose of the waste in Germany.

Another scandal occurs in Albania with pesticides from GDR production that contained lindane , triziline and falisan (seed dressing containing mercury) (see web links).

The transport of disused ships to Asia for dismantling can also be viewed as an export of hazardous waste, since the ships contain hazardous substances such as asbestos , organotin compounds ( tributyltin compounds ), paints containing heavy metals and used oils. In countries like India, ships are improperly dismantled on the beach without protective measures, with the toxic substances being released and entering the environment.

Before reunification, the West German media often spoke of the Schönberg landfill (now the Ihlenberg landfill), which made the GDR the largest importer of hazardous waste in Europe.

In Switzerland, the Kölliken hazardous waste landfill (CHF 900 million renovation costs) and Bonfol (over CHF 350 million renovation costs) are particularly well-known in this context .

See also

literature

  • Walter Leidinger, Joachim Beyer: Possibilities and limits of different methods of hazardous waste incineration . Environmental sciences and pollutant research 17 (2), pp. 59-63 (2005), ISSN  0934-3504 .

Web links

Wiktionary: toxic waste  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hazardous waste website of the Federal Environment Agency , December 16, 2016
  2. ↑ Art. 1 Paragraph 4 with Annexes I and III of this directive
  3. ↑ European Waste Catalog EAV website of the Bavarian State Office for Statistics, accessed on September 12, 2017
  4. ↑ Article 7 paragraphs 2 and 3, whereby this downgrading according to paragraph 4 may expressly not be done by diluting or mixing with less dangerous substances.
  5. ↑ Article 1 in conjunction with Appendix III
  6. ↑ Act implementing Regulation (EC) No. 1013/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of June 14, 2006 on shipments of waste 1) and the Basel Convention of March 22, 1989 on the control of transboundary shipments of hazardous waste and their disposal 2) (Waste Shipment Act - AbfVerbrG) of 19 July 2007 (Federal Law Gazette I p. 1462)
  7. ↑ Art. 2 Ordinance on the Movement of Waste (VeVA) of June 22, 2005 (as of July 1, 2017)
  8. ↑ Banks, D., Davies, C., Gosling, J., Newman, J., Rice, M., Wadley, J., Walravens, F. (2008): Environmental Crime - A threat to our future. Environmental Investigation Agency (PDF file; 1.25 MB).
  9. ↑ Section 41 (1) of the Recycling and Waste Management Act at that time in conjunction with Section 3 (1) AVV; while Section 41 (2) made it clear: "All waste for disposal that does not fall under paragraph 1 must be monitored".
  10. ↑ Section 3 (5) and Section 48 KrWG,
  11. ↑ § 54 KrWG
  12. ↑ IHK Ruhr: Notification / authorization requirement according to §§ 53/54 KrWG for collectors, carriers, dealers and brokers of (hazardous) waste
  13. ↑ Section 4 of the NachwV
  14. ↑ § 326 paras. 1 and 3, 4 . If the danger is realized or for other aggravation reasons, a prison sentence of 6 months or more is threatened according to § 330 StGB .
  15. ↑ "Active repentance" according to § 330b StGB.
  16. ↑ where explicit exceptions of the KrWG / Waste Framework Directive, such as for the producer of mixed municipal waste ("household waste") or for liquid waste (e.g. "slurry") do not apply here
  17. ↑ rol: Südschiene for hazardous waste . In: badische-zeitung.de, Nachrichten, Südwest , April 24, 2012 (April 28, 2012)