About us
Mission of HAZARDOUS WASTE EUROPE
Created in 2011, HAZARDOUS WASTE EUROPE represents more than 200 hazardous waste treatment industrial installations in Europe. Its members bring together a total treatment and recycling capacity of more than 9 million tonnes per year, and 300,000 tonnes per year of sorting-transit-grouping. Energy recovery amounts to more than one million MWh/year, and the recovered materials produced each year reach 500,000 tons. More than 5 million tons/year of CO2 equivalent are avoided.
HAZARDOUS WASTE EUROPE's mission:
HAZARDOUS WASTE EUROPE (HWE) is the association of European industries dedicated to the recycling, the recovery, the regeneration, and the treatment of hazardous waste. Its aim is to promote ambitious regulations to protect human health and the environment in this area.
- to promote the ecological quality of hazardous waste treatment and recycling
- to inform the public about the hazardous waste treatment industry
- and to favour the protection of human health and the environment in the regulations applicable to the management of hazardous waste
Ethics
To promote best practice, the members of HAZARDOUS WASTE EUROPE have adopted the following rules:
Full traceability from producer to final
- Complete traceability of the waste circuit
- Accurate waste classification and
- Systematic analysis and control of waste entering the facilities
Quality and safety of treatment
- Destruction of undesirable substances contained in waste
- Decontamination of waste before material recovery
- Pollutant-free recovered materials
- Non-dilution, non-dispersion of pollutants, monitoring of emissions and discharges
- Implementation of the best available techniques
General interest mission
- Expertise at the service of institutions and civil society
- Activities that combat climate change, protect human health and the environment and contribute to resource savings
Activities and process
- Regeneration of solvents, mineral oils, chromic baths, fuels
- Water recycling
- Recovery of metals by pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical processes
- Recovery of metals by pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical processes
- Recovery of other materials (soils, plastics, scrap metals, …)
- Energy recovery
- Physico-chemical treatments
- Biological treatments
- Incineration – evapo-incineration – evapo-concentration
- Management and treatment of PCBs
- Landfill
HWE members are present throughout the entire hazardous waste treatment chain. Thus, after collecting the waste, they characterise it in order to provide the most appropriate treatment for the protection of the environment and health. Two solutions are therefore envisaged :
- if it is technically and economically feasible to decontaminate the hazardous waste, then it is recycled and the extracted hazardous substances are disposed of in accordance with environmental regulations
- if it is not technically and economically feasible to decontaminate the hazardous waste, then it is disposed of entirely, in order to prevent the release of the hazardous substances it contains into the environment or into the recycled products.