The review of the National Waste Strategy has signaled to the waste management industry that a more integrated approach to waste management is necessary and there is a need to achieve greater linkage between waste streams.

Treatment of waste to reduce its hazards, promote recovery and reduce waste to landfill will be increasingly utilised to facilitate compliance with reduction in landfill use targets and tighter legislative requirements on what waste is suitable for landfill disposal. Meeting such requirements is well within Augean’s capabilities and our treatment division will help towards meeting such obligations.

Landfill will however continue to be an essential part of waste management and underpins the National Waste Strategy. Properly designed and managed landfills provide a safe and secure part of sustainable waste management. Augean shares society’s concerns about the potential consequences of poorly managed and operated landfill sites. Our landfill sites are the subject of expert design and constructed in accordance with detailed quality assurance plans. Rigorous operational controls are adopted and monitoring systems are used to verify performance.

Dedicated monitoring technicians work to agreed programmes and protocols with the Environment Agency and gather qualitative environmental data which is reported to our regulators at agreed periodic intervals. Augean reports environmental performance in respect of landfill gas, ambient air emissions, leachate, surface water, ground water, dust and noise.

Our technical assessors conduct a detailed analysis of the waste stream to determine its suitability for acceptance at the site and then specify the correct control systems that apply for reception at site.

Our rigorous compliance systems ensure that every drum or container that arrives for treatment or landfill disposal undergoes a thorough inspection by a qualified chemist. Similarly all bulk loads that arrive at our treatment centres are inspected by a chemist. Those bulk loads destined for landfill disposal are periodically inspected by a chemist and all are subject to a visual spot check by either a chemist or COTC holder to ensure acceptability for site. All our sites have dedicated quarantine areas to ensure that waste determined unacceptable for the site by our chemists can be stored safely and with minimal risk to the environment while an appropriate means of treatment or disposal is found in consultation with the Environment Agency.

All our landfill sites are registered to the international standard ISO 14001 for EMS. This standard forms part of our IMS which achieved certification to ISO 14001 during October 2006 as well as achieving accreditation to ISO 9001 and OHSAS 18001.

Our Cannock Treatment Centre is already certified to ISO 14001 and the remaining sites within the treatment division have successfully completed Phase 1 certification to ISO 14001 with the objective to achieve successful accreditation to the standard before the end of 2007.

We are a heavily scrutinised business not only by our own internal compliance teams but also by the Environment Agency, our local authorities and our external auditor, the British Standards Institute. Our clients frequently audit our site to ensure that we operate to the high standards that they require.