High Hazard Waste Explained
We’ve written about important considerations involving hazardous wastes before. High Hazard Waste management is a whole other ball game. Proper management of High Hazard Waste involves special chemical engineering techniques that might need to be applied on your site by a professional, or if possible, transported to a remote facility and managed there.
Types of High Hazard Waste
Specific types of explosives, biological agents, poisonous gases, banned pesticide, and a host of other materials, qualify as High Hazard Waste. Review the list at the end of this article to help determine if you have High Hazard Waste at your facility.
Remediation Procedures
Once a High Hazard Waste is identified, remediation commences. Hazardous waste experts must don ballistic Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), including Kevlar suits with flame resistant material and a breathing apparatus. In other words, the professionals coming to your location will look more like astronauts than chemical engineers. The strictest precautions are taken to ensure the safety of these waste management professionals, and for good reason — these are some of the most hazardous materials that professionals manage.
Stabilization Procedures
Once a High Hazard Waste is properly remediated, it must be stabilized before disposal. Stabilization occurs on-site for explosive materials that cannot be transported. Other types of material will be expertly packaged before transportation. Once the destination of that material is reached, it can be treated. The following are a few of the most common waste treatment methods.
Acid Base Neutralization
Waste can be neutralized by introducing agents that bring the pH of a waste solution to a non-hazardous level. This is usually done with sodium bicarbonate to bring the pH of the solution between 5 and 9.
Oxidation Reduction
Reduction/oxidation (Redox) reactions chemically convert hazardous contaminants to less toxic compounds that are less mobile and/or inert. The reducing agents most commonly used for treatment of hazardous waste are ferrous sulfate, sodium bisulfite, and sodium hydrosulfite.
Hydrolysis
A chemical process in which a molecule of water is added to a substance which causes both the substance and water molecule to split into two parts. In the hazardous waste context, this can mean breaking the bonds of hazardous chemicals to render them less hazardous.
If you’ve identified or generate high hazardous materials, contact Clean Management Environmental Group at (866) 908-8903 for a competitive rate quote. We conduct hazardous waste disposal in all 50 states and Canada.