With the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) having a population of over 6 million people, it is common for most manufacturing companies to produce a substantial amount of hazardous waste – but getting rid of that hazardous waste is no easy task for businesses in Toronto.
Given that hazardous waste is harmful to the environment, a good alternative to disposing of and purchasing more brand-new solvent is recovering your used solvent. This process allows solvents to be recovered to a virgin-like quality and can be used repeatedly.
The benefits of solvent recovery include being environmentally conscious of where your hazardous waste goes and using the solvent as much as possible before disposal. Another benefit includes saving on new solvent costs. When you start incorporating solvent recycling into your processes, you can use the recovered product instead of buying a new virgin product – saving your business a huge amount of money.
To get a better understanding of the process involved in the recovery and disposal of hazardous waste material in Toronto, we will cover what is considered hazardous waste, and how Maratek Environmental processes that waste.
What Is hazardous waste?
According to the Province of Ontario, hazardous waste is considered “a waste that, when present in quantities and concentrations that are high enough, pose a threat to human health or the environment if they are improperly stored, transported, treated or disposed.”
Hazardous waste materials can include waste acids, sludges, chemicals, biomedical wastes, solvents, industrial lubricants, and oils. Certain wastes are considered hazardous because they typically consist of components that are ignitable, reactive, corrosive, and/or toxic. For this reason, they require special handling. They cannot just simply be thrown out with regular waste that ends up in community landfills.
According to the Government of Canada, manufacturing sales had an increase of 3.1% in January of 2021. With this increase in sales, the domino effect starts with manufacturing production increasing, followed by an increase in waste material from said production.
The Government of Canada has shown through statistics that in 2018, Ontario had the highest amount of Hazardous waste disposed compared to the rest of the provinces throughout Canada.
With it being the capital city of Ontario, and the most populated city in Canada, it comes as no surprise that the majority of hazardous waste in Ontario comes from within Toronto, and the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).
Toronto has multiple industrial sites that produce a substantial amount of waste. When that waste is classified as hazardous, the Ontario Government requires “special handling with respect to how it is collected, stored, transported, treated, recovered, and disposed to reduce adverse effects to human health and the environment.”
Maratek Environmental – the collection process for hazardous waste in Toronto
- Once a customer gets in contact, Maratek Environmental requests a definition of the liquid waste or used solvent waste. This allows us to determine the best way to recycle or dispose of hazardous material.
- Once the waste is defined, Maratek will review and make sure it falls under ‘transportable waste’ within the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks (MOECP) certification so that we can bring it in for sample testing.
- Sample testing is the most effective way for our team to confirm whether your solvent waste is recyclable or disposable. This begins with the sample being added to a facility testing queue. It then goes through a distillation testing that separates the components. This gives our team of Chemical Specialists a chance to analyze the recovery performance.
- When it has been deemed acceptable for us to recycle, our team schedules a pickup within 30 days. The solvent handling division will drop it off at our waste management facility and start the distillation process.
- Depending on the solvent you are recycling, Maratek Environmental uses a recovery unit to separate the solvent from the undesirable component. Since most solvents contain a component with a lower boiling point (acetone, MEK, ethanol, etc.), these can be separated from the high boiling point components through distillation, and the reusable solvents will be recovered from the undesirables.
- Once the vapor is cooled and condensed, the left-over solvent is fully reusable to virgin-quality standards.
- If disposal of liquid hazardous waste is required, Maratek Environmental will schedule a pickup within 30 days of the request, after the sample testing has been done.
- Once received, it will then be part of a thermal decomposition process, which allows you to be rid of the hazardous waste in a safe way.
As a final observation, recycling your hazardous waste material using a solvent recovery process is a great option for both your budget and the environment. With environmentally friendly options being few and far between concerning hazardous waste, Maratek environmental provides consulting for the recovery or disposal process of your waste material.
Want to learn more about recycling your hazardous waste material using a solvent recovery process? Get in touch with Maratek Environmental today. Our team of experts would be happy to answer any questions or concerns that you may have.