How WRc’s Waste Doctors helped their clients during Covid-19 lockdown

Published on: 14 May 2021

Dr Kathy Lewin is our expert in waste characterisation and resource recovery

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In the first 12 months of Covid-19 lockdown, the Waste Doctors' in-house laboratory services stayed open throughout, adopting split shifts and additional safe working practices in order to continue supporting their customers. Even against this backdrop, our team achieved waste assessment of electricals, industrials. plastics, energy, food, furnishings and more.

March

Upon completion of the report for Industry Council for Electronic Equipment Recycling (ICER) on “Assessment of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) in waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE)", the Waste Doctors aim to help industry accurately assess other polymer streams to demonstrate that they are compliant with the POPs Regulations and WEEE Directive.

April

Three national regulators accepted our current non-hazardous waste classification for our customers’ incinerator bottom ash (IBA). To achieve this, we provided expert routine sample assessment and data monitoring, as well as in-depth advanced characterisation work to understand the chemical speciation of trace heavy metals critical for accurate classification.

May

MONS testing was carried out on disposable wipes as part of the Fine to Flush scheme to provide a measure of the biodegradable content of personal care products. By working for manufacturers we helped the water industry to reduce plastics entering domestic wastewater.

June

We engaged with a number of energy from waste operators about ammonia testing in IBA. Ammonia is being used with urea to dose flue gas emissions and meet more stringent NOx (nitrogen oxides) emissions standards. The question was what test would generate the most useful data.

July

Revisions were made to our expanded toolbox of advanced tests for speciating metals in biomass ash to support hazardous property assessments, especially HP14 (ecotoxic). At the same time, we widened our network of European synchtotrons for XAS analysis to support our metal speciation research/service and worked with a consortium on behalf of CEWEP (European EfW trade association) to understand HP14 assessment across CEWEP members.

August

We supported one energy from waste (EfW) facility investigate the suitability of using their process residues as cement replacements. We provided consultancy around mix formulations and chemical properties, and undertook environmental leaching test assessments to develop an end use for the material.

September

As Covid-19 guidelines relaxed, we provided support to an anaerobic digester operator to better understand the composition of food waste being received at the facility. Following representative site sampling of incoming loads, we sorted through a time series of large samples of food waste in our labs to be sure of getting robust data.

October

We looked at the composition and temperature that slags are formed on EfW boilers, causing fouling. By helping our clients understand these properties, they can learn how to minimise slag formation in their process reducing process downtime.

November

We battled the elements to collect samples of waste soft furnishing textiles and polymers from around the country in the effort to help the Environment Agency understand the levels of POPs in sofas, chairs and other soft furnishings.

December

All year, through improved sampling and analysis, we have helped a new biofuel EfW operator customer to consistently report higher biogenic carbon values than they could previously.

January

We successfully renewed our accreditation to ISO/ IEC 17025:2017 to deliver our clients UKAS accredited testing for a range of assessments, including biodegradability testing, such as BMc or DR4.

February

Hundreds of samples of non-WEEE cables were collected and are now embarking on X-ray fluorescence (XRF) screening and chemical testing to investigate whether they contain POPs for the British Metals Recycling Association (BMRA).

Created by potrace 1.16, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2019

Specialist waste management and resource recovery

WRc's Waste Doctors deliver bespoke solutions for effective product and waste management, characterisation and classification. 

Utilising our specialist in-house laboratories, we highlight 'problem parameters' which may compromise zero waste to landfill and other resource recovery goals.

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Created by potrace 1.16, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2019

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Dr Kathy Lewin

Director of Waste & Resources

Kathy has over 30 years’ technical consultancy experience specialising in waste characterisation to support resource recovery, waste classification and environmental risk assessment within the circular economy. She is a Chartered Scientist, Chartered Environmentalist, Chartered Resource and Waste Manager and a member if CIWM’s hazardous waste Special Interest Group.

2021-05-14 10:37:00