Growing amounts of hazardous waste have been collected from households in recent years, reaching 26,400 tonnes in 2005. But studies by Avfall Sverige — Swedish Waste Management show that another 4600 tonnes of hazardous waste goes out with the garbage. What the situation is in other sectors we do not know.
Hazardous waste is waste that contains or consists of hazardous substances. Because it is hazardous, it must be appropriately handled. This is the reason hazardous waste is so strictly regulated.
A few specialised facilities
Since the Swedish market for hazardous waste is fairly small, there is a limited number of treatment facilities. Many facilities specialise in one particular type of waste or one treatment method. As a result, capacity for the disposal of certain types of hazardous waste may only exist at a few locations in the country.
Hazardous waste can be treated of by incineration, chemical treatment, biological treatment, or landfilling. It often undergoes pre-treatment ahead of final disposal, such as evaporative concentration or the removal of hazardous components from electronic waste.
Examples of treatment
- Waste oil can be processed for use as a fuel, mainly in cement and lime kilns. A few large organisations in Sweden collect and pre-treat waste oil, but none of them have facilities to regenerate the oil for re-use as lubricant: this is done in plants outside Sweden.
- Spent batteries are collected, sorted, and delivered to a recycling facility or final disposal site as provided in the Battery Ordinance.
- Electrical and electronic waste undergoes pre-treatment (sorting and/or disassembly) before being forwarded for further treatment e. g. recovery of metals. Disassembly is mostly done manually at certified pre-treatment facilities.
- Oil-contaminated waste, such as sludge from petrol stations and oil separators, is handled at a number of plants around Sweden.
- Waste containing more than 0.1 percent by weight of mercury will have to be sent to underground storage from 2015.
- The quantity of contaminated soil is increasing. In 2004 there were 38 treatment facilities that could accept soil containing hazardous contaminants. This waste is mostly treated by biological techniques.
It is important that hazardous waste is collected and treated of in an environmentally sound manner. The long-term aim towards which we are working is to minimise the quantities of hazardous substances in all products that will eventually be discarded as waste.