Hazardous waste

Solvents, paints, batteries, sprays, sealant cans, wastewater. Hazardous waste that must not be released into the environment. Last year we processed approximately 600,000 tonnes of hazardous waste. Each kilo is treated in an appropriate and sustainable way. We turn hazardous waste into new raw materials and energy.

The hazardous waste stream is diverse, so there are many different types of end processors. Some solvents for example, are brought in a 20,000 litre tanker to the cement industry where flammable solvents are used as fuel in cement production. Consequently, primary fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas can remain in the environment.

Other solvents are suitable for distillation. We bring these hazardous liquids to distillation companies which clean the products, resulting in raw materials like pure ethanol.

There are also several useful applications for solid hazardous waste. For example, lead furnaces and metal processors use our collected batteries with the lead being reused in the production of new batteries. Around 15 per cent of hazardous waste is incinerated and converted into energy and because of the incinerator’s extremely high temperatures and flue gas cleaning systems; nothing remains of the toxic substances.