Mike Smith, Health & Safety Compliance Manager for Rhodar, one of the UK’s leading asbestos removal companies, warns facilities managers that the incorrect management and disposal of asbestos waste could expose their organisations to penalties and fines.

Waste disposal can be the weakest link in the chain involving the removal of asbestos from buildings.

Yet the new Control of Asbestos Regulations, which are being considered by ministers, could create misunderstanding and even more confusion about asbestos disposal.

The new regulations are to be broadly welcomed, in particular the new control limits and UKAS accreditation for the four stage clearance procedures, which will further tighten controls on working with asbestos materials.

However, one element is causing concern among legal, safety and asbestos removal experts.

The new regulations will now allow unlicensed contractors to remove decorative textured coatings – which contain some asbestos materials –  from premises including offices, warehouses and homes.

Prior to this proposal only licensed asbestos contractors could do this.

While it is illegal to dispose of asbestos in anything other than official licensed sites – and will continue to be so – the impression given by allowing unlicensed contractors to remove asbestos coatings is this may no longer be the case. It could make companies think that asbestos coated materials are now considered safe and can be treated as ordinary waste, when the reality is far from the case.

From a waste disposal point of view there are a number issues, with the main concern being the asbestos waste will not be disposed of properly, putting people at risk.  In the worst case it may be dumped and fibres could be released into the air near houses or schools.

For facilities managers, this could mean significant fines and prosecutions for their companies if they are found to be the source of the waste, as well as severe damage to their reputation.

As waste producers now have a duty to record and register the types and amounts of hazardous waste they are creating, anything other than a properly documented and appropriate disposal of their asbestos waste could risk legal proceedings.

Since the introduction of licensing in 1983, asbestos removal has become a tightly regulated industry. Operatives and supervisors are trained annually to remove asbestos in accordance with legislation that currently requires decontamination facilities, the use of negative pressure and third party certification that the work has been carried out to the required standards.

Through watering down the regulations and removing decorative textured coatings from the list of materials only licensed contractors can handle, some unlicensed contractors may now wrongly assume that asbestos no longer requires licensed and documented disposal.

Because of this, illegal dumping could happen due to a lack of knowledge, as much as a deliberate decision to flout the law.

Rhodar’s main concerns are:

1. Asbestos waste is dumped with ordinary construction/building materials, which means much larger quantities of waste will be contaminated, leading to whole containers of rubbish needing to be treated as hazardous waste.
   
2. If contractors are aware asbestos material must be disposed of as hazardous waste, but want to avoid the extra expense involved, there could be an increase in fly tipping of hazardous waste.

At the same time, as specialists have dealt with asbestos removal up until now, there is a real lack of knowledge among non-specialists about how asbestos needs to be removed and disposed.

Other factors which need to be considered are the changes to the Hazardous Waste Regulations 2005 (HWR), which further restrict the transport and disposal of hazardous waste in the UK.  These are intended to ensure ‘cradle-to-grave’ documentation for the movement of hazardous waste and place particular responsibility on duty holders, including facilities managers.

Complicating this is the phasing in of the Landfill (England and Wales) Regulations 2002, which has brought an end to the co-disposal of hazardous and non-hazardous waste on the same landfill site in many areas.  This has drastically reduced the number of sites which now accept waste containing asbestos.

The cost of disposal has also increased as more stringent sampling, testing and treatment of hazardous waste is now required by waste producers and/or landfill operators before waste can be accepted onto landfill sites.

Our key concern is the proposed changes may attract unlicensed rogue traders back into the asbestos industry – an element Rhodar and other asbestos specialists have worked hard for two decades to remove.

In light of this, Rhodar would recommend that any business looking to manage its asbestos waste appropriately should ensure any contractor they use:

1. Has appropriate insurance cover
2. Carries out a site survey
3. Conducts a risk assessment
4. Demonstrates their ability to fully comply with the Landfill Directive

Rhodar is running a series of free, half-day seminars throughout November to help facilities managers fully understand the impact of the new Control of Asbestos Regulations and how to manage asbestos waste safely and effectively. 

The seminars are running 9am-12.30pm on:

Tuesday 21 November – SECC, Glasgow
Wednesday 22 November – St James’ Park, Newcastle
Thursday 23 November – City of Manchester Stadium, Manchester
Tuesday 28 November – Villa Park, Birmingham
Wednesday 29 November – White Hart Lane, London
Thursday 30 November – AT Bristol

To book your free place at the any of the above seminars call Katy Conway on 0113 242 1155 or email katy@ptarmiganpr.co.uk.

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