Redox Pty Limited

Question:

what is the waste management plan?

Redox Pty Limited

26-30 Gilbertson Road, Melbourne

Redox Pty Limited

51-57 Buckhurst Street, South Melbourne VIC 3205

Manufacturing Melbourne

This report will include a waste assessment conduct and planning and preparing draft for waste management at Redox located in Melbourne, NSW. The outcome of our investigation on this Australian firm will explains specific issues regarding to waste management in the firm, which needed to reduce over time. The report will first provide the information of the site following will explains the rationale for developing the plan according to the firm authorities and our observation.

The report also explain and discuss the process through which the firm handles or can handle waste material by storing, classifying, transporting and disposing. It will also contain the waste material such as chemical stock which is damaged and unsalable and chemical packaging. The report also describes the procedure through which liquid and non-liquid waste of Redox branch disposed and issues in this process and recommendations for this is explained in the report. The analysis of waste management, its cost effectiveness and how much the firm can save from reducing the waste material or recycling them is discussed in the report.

Redox is a leading commodity well known in Australia especially for chemical distribution work with 10 local sales offices throughout the country. There are more than 300 staff working in the firm and recorded A$453 million sales in last year. It will work with 140 industries in order to bring the best and efficient products across the world. It is well known for marketing organic and inorganic raw material. We reported and visited Redox firm is located in No. 2 Swettenham Road Minto of New South Wales.

Waste types in the firm are recorded through their recently developed system; it will also record the quantities and method of disposal for all waste streams in the form of spreadsheet. Through the spreadsheet and the managing the record keeping allows Redox to obtain the information about the solid waste and inert waste which taken for landfill directly, how much quantity of chemical products and packaging going to be disposed, general waste contractor then remove the solid disposal weight and recycling waste (Redox Anuual Report, 2013). Typical waste generated by Redox which is generated regularly is office papers, packaging, stationary, shrink wrapping and kitchen putrescible waste. The current waste management plan followed by Redox is, the staff must place all drink containers made up of aluminium to appropriate bins with the plastic bag liners which would kept in the kitchens of marketing, shipping and warehouse department.  Prior to disposal the containers are to be emptied of soft drink and rinsed with water. Those containers are then collected from bins on weekly basis.

It is observed that the current waste management plan applied for Redox is not enough as compare to the bulk of waste collected on regular basis.

During the operations handled at this site it is required to ensure the management of appropriate handling as well as storage and disposal of generated waste. They are required to outline Waste Management Plan for considering environmental impact it causes by dumping waste.

Manufacturing Melbourne

The company’s warehouse and general office rubbish includes stationary, plastic, glass or bottles, food and as the company primarily supply chemical, the shrink wrapping and empty chemical packaging can also be dumped into the waste bins (Woodyard and Chris, 2008). From disposing and minimizing waste they obviously want to cut costs around the office as much amount is spent on this office supplies. Due to this and to reduce impact on environment from their waste the company require to adopt some changes in the into their waste management plan to come up more successfully in future.

The non-compactable items like empty drums, pallets, and large pieces of timber, metal, concrete are essential to sent to the waste treatment facilities (Mata, 2001). Most importantly the waste chemical packaging such as poison, liquid waste or DG has to be disposed by licensed supplier and there are some limitation the firm facing while disposing these wastes. Hence the waste not only adds clutter to the space but also it will be risky to store the waste, therefore finding quick and effective finding of removing waste is essential.

Considering all these facts the firm needed to find some options that will be beneficial at the same time cost effective. Hence environment friendly waste management plan has to develop with minimal effort in this situation. The firm will need the solution over managing waste for immediate implementation and dispose the remaining waste efficiently.

By accessing the complete firm and gathering the information on the waste produced and bins used to store and further moved to disposal, will help to somewhat estimate amounts of waste produced at the visited site and quantity of bins and containers available to store the waste are enough or not. To get specific information about the production of chemical raw material, their risks and importing the other supplies from Redox, meet and interviewed the Director of the firm, managers of marketing, shipping and warehouse department to get the exact working of waste management process. Through the series of interviews with the authorities and employees got the satisfied information.

It is important to note the amount of material or supplies imported with the help of invoices and material management department (Geels, 2008) provides the information about the purchased items per month. When overall purchased information will gain, it gets easy to identify the area of improvement by utilizing new methods for improving the waste management for the office. The records of wasted utilities can be collected from the spreadsheet, developed to record quantity of solid or inert waste. It will also note the quantity of chemical products and packaging going to be disposed.

The following are the major supplies that are purchased monthly, these are also the major contributors to the waste generated in the office.

Table 1: Average monthly figure quantities

It is possible to predict the approximate waste generated from the visited site with the help of director and staff. It is also found difficult to predict the quantities of atypical wastes that are damaged chemical product or packaging, empty drums and Intermediate bulk containers. According to NSW Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) hazardous on site noted are, Acidic solutions or acid in solid form, basic solutions, non-toxic salt, zinc compounds are majorly wasted.

Current Waste Management Plan for Redox

In the past year the Redox NSW site generated 41 tones hazardous which means approximately 3 tones hazardous per month of atypical waste (Singh, Krasowski and Singh 2011). This volume consists of damaged chemicals products or unsaleable packaging. At the site it is required to reconditioning or land filling of empty packaging and estimated 20 kg waste per empty drum and 65 kg waste per empty IBC.

The procedure follow for cleaning during the operation is that, the chemical products split during the operations are immediately cleaned up and then they are placed into heavy duty plastic bags, the bags are labeled by the compound in it and then thrown into the wheelie bins which are specially designed for the class of products (Palmer and Paul, 2005). Later on the bins are moved for disposal. The bin containing categorize per disposable material will also be kept within a specific warehouse section (Glasbergen, 2007) which is special or designated for the class of product.

Table 2: Average monthly waste

Paper and cardboard are next prime waste material which should be recycled to avoid the environmental impact (Roper and William, 2006), to minimize the waste as well as reduce the cost of waste. Record must be kept because it demonstrates a step towards better waste management process. Due to record keeping standard or normal waste levels are establishes and maintaining of waste quantities record will help the firm to assess its operations performance with the waste management principles to avoid and minimize waste landfill requirement (Cary, 2008).

In the waste generation process all staff is informed about placing all drink containers made up of aluminium to appropriate bins with the plastic bag liners which would kept in the kitchens of marketing, shipping and warehouse department.  Prior to disposal the containers are to be emptied of soft drink and rinsed with water. Those containers are then collected from bins on weekly basis.

The spreadsheet and records maintained will allow the standard level of waste establishments and also set trends in waste disposal (Roper and William, 2006). The waste records of sites will be maintained by the Coordinator of Regulatory Affairs as they have experience of statistical analysis of data over time. Programs and other waste management options like recycling and alternate packaging will be researched for avoiding and minimizing the waste avoidance objective. It is also suggested to Redox that they will have to design Annual report on environmental reporting.

Our Bribros team are located just south of Melbourne’s city centre and service our plastics business.

For recycling the materials

Cardboard and paper waste at office

Warehouse

Excess use of papers

Different disposals of items

From the above images we can get the visual idea about the wastage problem faced by Redox and as the site is located in large area and large amount of work has been carried on regular basis and number of worker are more, so the wastage produced also in more quantity. Number of bins is shown in one figure which will distinguish as per the material. We can implement some ideas from the observation which can help in implementing ideas to minimize waste.

Issues in the Waste Management Process

By inspecting the Redox waste management process, significant things are noticed such as the firm can not undertake any treatment processes for the damaged chemical product classified as waste and such processes can be managed under DEC which is a licensed waste facility.

To manage the waste effectively it is important to divide the responsibilities and authorities to the specific person is important and it is significant aspect of waste management plan at Redox and is shown below:

• It is the responsibility of Regulatory Affair Coordinator to maintain a permanent record of all waste disposals and then report about it to the environment authorities when required (Redox Annual report, 2013).
• To classify all the waste, obtain disposable material and receiving all waste tracking documentation is done under observation of the Site Environmental Officer and it is his or her duty to report about the disposal to the coordinator of Regulatory Affairs.
• Store Manager should ensure that appropriate effort has been made to minimize the waste and also ensure that waste is fit for transport as it contains the damaged chemical packaging.
• It is responsibility of Product manager to exhaust all avenues for sale or return damaged or unsealed stock instead of sending to disposal.

Compliance is essential factor of waste management and hence to ensure that all employees will use correct disposable method (Davoudi and Evans 2005) is responsibility of Store manager and coordinator. All employees working in Redox are abide by procedures that are specified in this waste management plan should be the employment condition.  It is also significant to provide formal warning and guidance to employees who contravene these procedures.

Other than the chemical waste other most important waste material is office papers, cardboard, fax and photocopy papers, envelopes, Manilla folders, Magazines, newspapers, cardboard milk cartons. To reduce the printout paper waste it is important to ensure errors before printing. If printing papers will reduces it will automatically reduces the ink cartridges. Recycling the office and print papers and cardboard are prime example of avoiding waste (Stoker, 2010).

Waste management principles are applied to this area of waste by avoiding printing of unnecessary documents or emails, Both sides of paper can be used for printing, cardboard or paper can be separated for recycling, paper cannot be given to landfill for disposal.

Table 3: Estimated Wastage through Changes Implemented

*Quantities are based on waste for an average month

Table 3: Savings Accumulated

*Quantities are based on waste for an average month

We can conclude from the calculation made throughout the report that, it is possible to reduce or minimize the waste by recycling or by using different technique and it will not only become profitable exercise for the company but it will also reduce the environmental impact occur from the company’s waste (Landy, 2001). Hence it is not wrong to say that minimizing the waste will positively affect the office and site environment and will also cost effective for the company, when less products waste it automatically save the purchasing amount of supplies. It is also specified that through the simple waste management technique can tend vital impact socially, environmentally and economically.

One thing is clear from above discussion that is, by recycling and making plan for waste management the firm can achieve economic as well as environmental objectives by following simple and easy waste management clause. It is obviously possible with the effort and support of all the staff and employees, here are some recommendations for the firm for managing and recycling waste.

The responsibility has to assign to the store manager to inform the coordinator of regulatory affairs, when there are non-compactable items on sites like empty drums, pallets and so on which requires recycling or disposal.

Another waste will have to be recycled such as paper, card board and aluminium cans. The recycling program obtained through the workplace waste help to reduce environment impact and also save money. The morale and facilitation of team building are output of recycling program.

One important section where require to pay more attention will be the solid chemical waste section. The non DG or Poison chemicals has to classify individually by the Regulatory Affairs Coordinator along with the operator of waste facility to identify that either they can go to landfill or not. If land filling is not appropriate option then the substance have to sent to licensed waste treatment facility.

Redox can avoid and minimize waste generation by handling the product carefully during transport and storage. It is better to prefer repack and sold the damaged chemical product at reduced or no cost in every circumstance instead of disposal. It is preferred to recycle and use empty drums and IBC instead of disposing and raw materials are used to create new packing. It is also necessary to dispose the chemical material waste correctly and lawfully and given to licensed disposing authority with classification and tracking procedures.

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