Managing Industrial Waste Effectively

Ever had to dispose of industrial waste, and found it was a bottomless pit of problems?

Recently, our client was upgrading a large furnace that was pivotal for the production of a significant proportion of Australia’s glass bottles in the beverage and food storage industry.

Although the glass manufacturing process is not generally associated with heavy contaminating activities; the furnace upgrade generates some wastes that needed to be managed appropriately.

Our client’s challenge was that the waste required the off-site disposal and must be disposed of in accordance with Victorian EPA Regulations (IWRG).

Our solution was to provide a sustainable and cost-effective approach for the waste management as production had ceased and they were looking down the barrel of a large project budget blow out.

Key steps in the Waste Management process:

• Understand the origin of potential contamination;
• Characterise the material which requires disposal;
• Analyse the samples – identify the contamination composition of each material;
• Develop a site specific waste management plan to remove identified waste materials efficiently.

How did we do it?

The Contaminated Land Management (CLM) team utilised our project experience and developed a technical scope in order to fully characterise the waste material which involved sifting and segregation of the material.

This classified the waste material (bricks and fines material) by developing a custom sampling methodology specifically for the client; it resulted in the classification of the entire stockpile, and a more detailed understanding of what materials were present.

The Result

The result was that the bulk of material (bricks) could be classified as uncontaminated industrial waste and a minor volume of material (fines) disposed of as contaminated material.

Ultimately, this investigation method reduced the unnecessary landfilling of contaminated waste compared to initial estimates that was driving the IWRG classification and high cost.

Overall, the Contaminated Land Management team saved the client over $800k in project costs, and a large headache.

Jeremy Newstead 

Sector leader – Contaminated Land Management

If you want to know more on how we can help or you have comments of similar projects, contact me here or visit our website