Hazardous Waste - what is it?

Hazardous waste from fluorescent tubes

Fluorescent lighting tubes contain mercury and cadmium. They are classed as hazardous waste under the European Landfill Directive.
Mercury is classified as a dangerous substance and is toxic to humans and very toxic to aquatic organisms and may cause long term effects in the aquatic environment.

The environment agency advisory note for Hazardous Waste Regulations is that fluorescent tubes and lamps are classed as hazardous waste. In the UK every user of fluorescent tubes and lamps has a responsibility under the Environmental Protection (Duty of Care) Regulations to dispose of them correctly. The Environment Agency guidance issued on the Netregs web site is “Your business must store, collect, treat, recycle and dispose of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) separately from your other waste. You must obtain and keep proof that your WEEE was given to a waste management company, and was treated and disposed of in an environmentally sound way”.

Traditional Solutions

Larger users sometimes contain their waste tubes in cardboard sleeves or box containers for disposal in bulk. However, the tubes often break presenting a physical hazard and a potential for contamination of water courses through surface water drains when stored in the open environment ready for collection by an approved waste contractor.

These methods can be expensive and they can take up valuable floor space. Other systems utilise specially designed racks to hold the waste tubes in storage until ready for disposal. However, these systems again take up a large amount of space and cannot account for breakages. The user is still left with the problem of how to handle and dispose of broken tubes.
 
Now the Sumo Crusher can solve the problem. The Sumo crusher is a unique and simple design. The tubes are encapsulated when crushed and the reduced volume of waste is held in a sealed container until ready for recycling or disposal options. As many as 300 - 400 tubes can be held in the units storage drum (this is dependent on the length of the fluorescent tube being crushed).
 

REGISTRATION OF EXEMPT ACTIVITY
WASTE MANAGEMENT LICENSING REGULATIONS 1994
REGULATION 18