South Africa generated close to 67 million tonnes of hazardous waste in 2017, and more than 93% of it was sent to landfill, according to the country's National Waste Management Strategy (NWMS). Much of that volume is made up of solvents, waste oils, contaminated liquids and reactive chemicals, and when these are mishandled, their effects rarely stay on the property that produced them. Toxins move into groundwater, settle in soil and reach the air that nearby communities breathe. World Environmental Health Day, observed on 26 September, keeps that relationship between environmental management and public health in view, a fitting moment to look at how the country handles one of its toughest waste categories.

"Too many businesses still treat hazardous waste as something you simply get rid of," says Barry Nel, Hazardous Waste Manager for Gauteng at Oricol Environmental Services. "A significant portion of what we receive holds real recovery value once it has been correctly profiled and treated, and that shifts the economics for the generator as much as the environmental outcome."

Oricol Environmental Services operates licensed hazardous waste facilities across three provinces, holding Waste Management Licences for each. Its infrastructure includes a Liquid Treatment Plant for contaminated water and hazardous liquids, a Blending Plant that converts suitable waste into alternative fuel, and a Drum and IBC Collection service that removes containerised hazardous waste safely from client sites. Every incoming stream begins with waste profiling and laboratory analysis, which sets the treatment route before anything is processed.

In a typical year Oricol handles around 22,987 tonnes of hazardous liquids, 12,983 tonnes of hazardous solids and 3,220 tonnes of waste oils. Each category carries different risks and treatment requirements, and those differences decide how the material is handled from the moment it arrives.

Treatment changes the nature of the waste before it leaves the generator's control, which is the difference between a managed liability and an open one. Oricol matches each stream to the treatment and recovery route best suited to it, drawing on several processes rather than forcing everything down one pathway. The aim is to recover as much as the waste allows, with only genuinely unrecoverable residue prepared for disposal at a licensed site. The Gauteng facility operates under ISO 14001, ISO 45001 and ISO 9001 certification.

"Each consignment is tracked through to its final destination. A generator who cannot show where their waste ended up is still carrying that liability, whether or not it appears on their books," adds Nel.

The cost of poor treatment surfaces downstream. Waste oils that are dumped instead of reclaimed contaminate soil and water for years at a time. Solvents and hydrocarbons contain compounds linked to respiratory and neurological harm, and chemical effluent released untreated into a watercourse does not stay where it entered. These are the exposures World Environmental Health Day sets out to highlight. “The Waste Act places a general duty of care on the generator from the point at which waste is produced, so a spill or an illegal dump remains the responsibility of the business that created the material, not only the operator who handled it last,” says Nel.

Several hazardous streams hold value once they have been treated. Recovered oils and solvents can be reprocessed for industrial use or blended into alternative fuel, and Oricol's Blending Plant combines hazardous liquids and solids with high calorific material to fuel cement kilns in place of part of their coal feed. Treated water is returned to municipal systems once laboratory results confirm it meets the required standards. These recovered products reach a broad base of end users: cement producers, energy recovery facilities, industrial manufacturers, recycling operators and water treatment plants.

For businesses selecting a hazardous waste partner, a few questions carry more weight than the quoted rate. Confirm that the provider holds valid Waste Management Licences and ask to review its compliance and incident history. Establish whether it runs laboratory support of its own and more than one treatment technology, since no single method suits every stream. Insist on full tracaability and clear sight of the final treatment or disposal pathway.

"Ask the difficult questions before you sign anything," says Nel. "Check the licences, look closely at the incident record, and establish whether they can genuinely recover value from your waste or whether it is quietly making its way to landfill under a different description. The right partner manages your risk and unlocks the resource in your waste at the same time."