Tag Archives: Industrial Waste

How to Make a Construction Site Safe?

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Site safety should be your number one priority when setting up a construction site. If you are starting a new project and need some guidance on how to make your site safety compliant, we have rounded up a quick guide to create a safety compliant construction site in line with the Health and Safety Executive’s regulations.

Site rules and induction

It is essential that all construction personnel are briefed and trained in the site-specific safety rules and partake in a site safety induction.

Site rules should be clear and easy to understand for all personnel. If you have employees on site whose mother tongue is not English, you must provide the site rules in other languages to make them clear for these employees.

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Every construction site employee must be given an appropriate site induction, including any tours of the site, training videos and practical training exercises applicable to your construction site.

Traffic management

For large sites that will have vehicles moving about them, it is absolutely vital that you have a traffic management system in place to ensure the safety of people on site.

This should include clearly demarcated routes for vehicles and for employees on foot. Warning systems for vehicles moving about on site and specific parking spaces for site vehicles.

Protective equipment

As a construction site employer, you must provide your employees with the correct personal protective equipment. This could include hard hats and high-visibility clothing to ensure they are noticeable on site.

You should also be providing first aid supplies, a registered first aider and other emergency equipment such as eye washes should an accident occur on site.

In addition, it is now important that you provide the proper personal protective equipment to mitigate the risks to your employees from airborne viruses. This could include masks, hand sanitizers and visors.

Waste management

Undoubtedly, your construction site will generate waste and debris that will need to be managed properly. Domestic waste from site offices and staff areas should be separated for recycling and disposed of under the local council’s guidance.

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Chemical and industrial waste should be handled efficiently too. It is important that you have a waste management contract in place with a reputable provider before you start work on site.

For more information on how to keep your site safety compliant, visit the Health and Safety Executive website for the construction industry.

Solid Waste Management in Kuwait

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Kuwait, being one of the richest countries, is among the highest per capita waste generators in the world. Each year more than 2 million tons of solid waste is generated in the tiny Arab nation. High standards of living and rapid economic growth has been a major factor behind very high per capita waste generation of 1.4 to 1.5 kg per day.

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Waste Disposal Method

The prevalent solid waste management method in Kuwait is landfill burial. Despite being a small country, Kuwait has astonishingly high number of landfills. There are 18 landfills, of which 14 sites are closed and 4 sites are still in operation. These landfills act as dumpsites, rather than engineered landfills.

Menace of Landfills

Infact, landfill sites in Kuwait are notorious for causing severe public health and environmental issues. Besides piling up huge amounts of garbage, landfill sites generate huge amount of toxic gases (methane, carbon dioxide etc) and plagued by spontaneous fires. Due to fast paced urban development, residential areas have expanded to the edges of landfill sites thus causing grave danger to public health.

The total land area of Kuwait is around 17,820 sq. km, out of which more than 18 sq. km is occupied by landfills. Area of the landfill sites ranges from tens to hundreds of hectares with waste deposition depth varying from 3 to 30 meters.

All kind of wastes, including municipal wastes, food wastes, industrial wastes, construction and demolition debris etc are dumped at these sites. Infact, about 90 percent of the domestic waste is sent to landfills which imply that more landfills will be required to tackle rapidly increasing volumes of solid wastes.

Most of the landfill sites have been closed for more than 20 years due to operational problems and proximity to new residential, commercial and industrial areas. These sites include Sulaibiyah, Kabed, Al Qurain, Shuaiba, Jleeb AI Shuyoukh, West Yarmouk, AI Wafra among others. Migration of leachate beyond landfill site boundaries is a frequent problem noticed across Kuwait. Groundwater contamination has emerged as a serious problem because groundwater occurs at shallow depths throughout the country.

The major landfill sites operated by municipality for solid waste disposal are Jleeb AI Shuyoukh, Sulaibiyah and Al-Qurain. The Qurain landfill, with area of 1 sq. km, was used for dumping of municipal solid waste and construction materials from 1975 until 1985 with total volume of dumped waste being 5 million m3.

The Sulaibiyah landfill site received more than 500 tons of waste per day from 1980 to 2000 with area spanning 3 sq. km. Jleeb AI Shuyoukh, largest landfill site in Kuwait with area exceeding 6 sq. km, received 2500 tons per day of household waste and industrial waste between 1970 and 1993. Around 20 million m3 of wastes was dumped in this facility during its operational period.

Over the years, most of the dumpsites in Kuwait have been surrounded by residential and commercial areas due to urban development over the years. Uncontrolled dumpsites were managed by poorly-trained staff resulting in transformation of dumpsites in breeding grounds for pathogens, toxic gases and spontaneous fires.

Most of the landfill sites have been forced to close, much before achieving their capacities, because of improper disposal methods and concerns related to public health and environment. Due to fast-paced industrial development and urban expansion, some of the landfills are located on the edges of residential, as is the case of Jleeb Al-Shuyoukh and Al-Qurain sites, endangering the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.

Preparing an Effective Industrial Waste Management Plan

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Did you realize over 7 billion tons of industrial waste is produced in the United States each year? If you are the owner of an industrial business, having an adequate waste management plan is essential. Without a waste management plan, you run the risk of doing a lot of damage to the environment.

If you are new to the world of industrial waste management, you need to take your time when develop a plan of action. Consulting with waste management professionals is a great way to ensure the plan you develop is successful. Below are few crucial tips to  prepare an effective industrial waste management plan.

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Collaborating With the Right Waste Management Company

Unless your company has the ability to transport and dispose of industrial waste, you will need to work with a third-party. Most business owners fail to realize just how many different waste management companies there are on the market. Ideally, you want to find a company that offers services like industrial cleaning, hazardous material transportation and spill response.

If you need services like this for a competitive price, you need to go through PROS Services. By pairing with the right waste management company, you can avoid making mistakes when it comes to disposing of hazardous and non-hazardous materials.

Make Recycling a Focal Point of Your Strategy

Being a business owner in the modern age requires you to be more eco-conscious. One of the best ways for an industrial business to do their part for the environment is by recycling as much as possible. When running an industrial business, you will undoubtedly have a number of recyclable materials. Turning these materials over to companies that can actually do something with them is imperative.

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Making a new recycling program work will require to get your entire team on board. Informing your team about the importance of recycling is the first step in making your program successful. You also need to implement easy and effective solutions when it comes to how your team will store the recyclable materials. By laying out the details of your plan, you can address any concerns your team may have.

Leave Flexibility in Your Plan

As waste management technology and requirements change, you will have to adapt your strategy. This is why leaving a high-degree of flexibility in your plan is so important. Accomplishing this will be easy if you do things like sign short-term contracts with the companies hired to dispose of your industrial waste. Staying on the cutting edge of industrial waste management technology can help you see when changes are coming and what you can do to embrace these changes.

Don’t Wait to Implement Your Plan

As you can see, having a way to properly dispose of industrial waste is important. This is why you need to avoid procrastinating when developing a plan of action. Allowing professionals to weigh in on the details of your waste management plan can help you avoid making mistakes.