introduction

Any industrial activity results in the creation of waste materials. Everything used in the production process is at some stage disposed of, whether it is raw material or process waste, or the final product at the end of its useful life.

Some of these materials will be legally defined as wastes. Some of these materials will be contained and taken off site for disposal (see waste management).

Inputs and outputs: engineering factory

A significant amount of all the waste created on a site will be released directly to the environment. You need to know the nature of the materials leaving your site and where they are going.

Much of the direct emissions to air and probably all the emissions escaping to land or water will be subject to regulatory controls. In many cases, some kind of permission needs to be sought from the authorities.

All businesses bring materials onto their sites. In manufacturing, these will be predominantly raw materials, packaging materials, plant and equipment. Service industries may be limited to paper, consumables associated with running the building itself and the electronic equipment necessary for the operation of modern offices.

In summary, everything that comes onto a site will either leave by one means or another, or accumulate at the site until the day someone removes it.

The suggested movements of materials shown in the above diagrams should help you to build up a picture of the material flows into and out of a site, and their likely legal and practical implications.

See also the Environmental Liability Directive in the Register of Environmental Legislation