by Suzan Oelofse

The preamble to the Waste Act (2008) is very clear that as a result of this legislation waste management in South Africa will never be the same again. This should send a clear message that business as usual will no longer be sufficient.

The implementation of the Waste Act requires everyone involved in the value chain of goods – from manufacturing through to disposal of waste – to plan, think and act differently; thus, business unusual.

A paradigm shift from end-of-pipe waste management towards waste avoidance, reuse and recycling in South Africa was first put forward in the White Paper on Integrated Pollution and Waste Management (IP&WM) (2000), and the first National Waste Management Strategy (1999).The Waste Act finally provides the legal basis to ensure its implementation. This alignment of South African waste management with international trends will therefore require a close look at the entire value chain of goods and services.The Waste Act imposes a general duty on every person or business to manage waste in a responsible way so as to reduce the amount of waste that is generated and to ensure that waste is managed in an environmentally sound manner by following the waste hierarchy.

This should not be news to anyone operating a business in the global market. Many large businesses, especially organisations with ISO 14000 certification or with international parent companies, already implement the basics of the waste hierarchy, but this is just the start of implementing the Act. So, what does ‘business unusual’ mean in the context of the new legislation?

The Act provides for standards to be set at all stages in the waste management chain. The National Domestic Waste Collection Standards already prescribe quality standards for services and equipment. For example,receptacles for storage of waste must be rigid and durable to prevent spillage and leaking; it must be intact and not corroded or worn out; and covered to prevent wind-blown litter. Collection vehicles must be appropriate for the task and terrain and must be covered to prevent littering during transportation. Therefore, compliance to these standards will require regular checks and replacement of non-compliant receptacles and phasing out of non-compatible vehicles. Strict enforcement of these and other standards set under the Act will thus have cost implications while ensuring that the standards are met at all times. Businesses and industry that outsource waste management to waste service providers have an obligation in terms of the general duty imposed by the Act, to ensure that the appointed contractor will be able to provide the contracted service within the ambit of the relevant standards.

Previously, only waste disposal and treatment facilities required waste licences. This situation has significantly changed with the implementation of the Waste Act (Chapter 5). All waste management activities that have or are likely to have a detrimental effect on the environment now require waste management licences. A list of these activities have been published, and include storage of waste, reuse, recycling and recovery of waste, treatment and disposal of waste as well as the construction, expansion or decommissioning of facilities and associated infrastructure relating to waste management.Businesses that engage in waste management activities that previously operated without waste management licences may now require such a licence or licences to operate legally.

Extended producer responsibility is an important waste management measure that is introduced by the Act (Chapter 4, Part 3) to minimise waste and increase recycling while protecting our natural resources. This provision places responsibility for the management of consumer goods at the end of their useful life, at the door of the producer. The aim is to encourage producers to rethink the input material used in manufacturing with the aim of reducing the consumption of natural resources while increasing the recyclability of the product. To achieve this goal, manufacturing has two options – substituting the use of natural resources with recycled materials when manufacturing consumer goods or redesigning goods to use fewer natural resources.

The implementation of Section 59 of the Consumer Protection Act, 2008 (CPA) provides a form of extended producer responsibility. It requires that suppliers of ‘particular goods’ have to accept the return of such goods and certain wastes that cannot be disposed of into common waste collection systems. The supplier is required to accept goods or waste irrespective of whether that particular supplier sold the goods to the consumer in the first place. The suppliers then have the option to return the waste to the importers, producers or distributors of the goods or incurring the costs of disposing the waste themselves. This may result in suppliers of consumer goods having to store waste and engage in other listed waste management activities that may require a waste management licence. In addition, a supplier will not be allowed to charge consumers for this service, resulting in a cost burden to the supplier to deal with the waste thus collected.

Industry waste management plans (IndWMPs) is another new addition to waste regulation in South Africa. The Waste Act (Chapter 4, Part 7) provides for voluntary and compulsory IndWMPs to be developed. Approval of an industry waste management plan has potentially far reaching consequences for the industry and consumers. Such plans will dictate how the waste streams from a specific industry or sector will be managed, including targets for waste minimisation and methods for monitoring and reporting. The minister or MEC may specify the extent of any financial contribution to be made to support consumer-based waste reduction programmes. Both industry players and consumers will be involved in the implementation of these plans. Industry will have to provide the means and systems for the collection and managementof the waste stream and consumers will be required to take certain waste streams to specified collection points. It is likely that the collection points will be located at suppliers and producers. The successful implementation of an IndWMPwill rely heavily on consumer awareness and participation. It is likely that the costsfor implementing these plans will be recovered through levies charged on new products.The administration around implementation of IndWMPs is bound to be cumbersome and costly.

The minister also has the power to declare priority waste streams under the Act (Chapter 4, Part 1) for which management measures and handling requirements may be set. It is likely that such a declaration will impose requirements for additional capacity, infrastructure and costs and for the safe management of priority waste streams.

The Act (Chapter 6) also introduced a data reporting requirement, supported by the South African Waste Information System (SAWIS). It is envisaged that waste generators, transporters, recyclers, treatment facilities, disposal facilities and exporters will eventually submit data into the SAWIS, but reporting will be phased in over time. The Waste Information Regulations took effect on 1 January 2013 and everyone conducting activities listed in the regulations, had to register on the SAWIS, within 30 days. If you are not yet collecting data on the waste streams and quantities generated or handled by your business, it is certainly an opportune time to put systems in place to manage in-house waste data in a way that will streamline reporting into SAWIS. Suppliers of consumer goods that cannot be disposed of into common waste collection systems are encouraged to put systems in place to record data on the quantities of waste handled by them as a result of the Consumer Protection Act.

Business unusual as it relates to waste management in line with the implementation of the Waste Act, boils down toviewingand treating waste management as an important and integral part of any business and not just as an afterthought or something that waste management companies should deal with.