Assessment of four calculation methods proposed by the EC for waste hazardous property HP 14 ‘Ecotoxic’

Abstract

Legislation published in December 2014 revised both the List of Waste (LoW) and amended Appendix III of the revised Waste Framework Directive 2008/98/EC; the latter redefined hazardous properties HP 1 to HP 13 and HP 15 but left the assessment of HP 14 unchanged to allow time for the Directorate General of the Environment of the European Commission to complete a study that is examining the impacts of four different calculation methods for the assessment of HP 14. This paper is a contribution to the assessment of the four calculation methods. It also includes the results of a fifth calculation method; referred to as "Method 2 with extended M-factors". Two sets of data were utilised in the assessment; the first (Data Set #1) comprised analytical data for 32 different waste streams (16 hazardous (H), 9 non-hazardous (NH) and 7 mirror entries, as classified by the LoW) while the second data set (Data Set #2), supplied by the eco industries, comprised analytical data for 88 waste streams, all classified as hazardous (H) by the LoW. Two approaches were used to assess the five calculation methods. The first approach assessed the relative ranking of the five calculation methods by the frequency of their classification of waste streams as H. The relative ranking of the five methods (from most severe to less severe) is: Method 3>Method 1>Method 2 with extended M-factors>Method 2>Method 4. This reflects the arithmetic ranking of the concentration limits of each method when assuming M=10, and is independent of the waste streams, or the H/NH/Mirror status of the waste streams. A second approach is the absolute matching or concordance with the LoW. The LoW is taken as a reference method and the H wastes are all supposed to be HP 14. This point is discussed in the paper. The concordance for one calculation method is established by the number of wastes with identical classification by the considered calculation method and the LoW (i.e. H to H, NH to NH). The discordance is established as well, that is when the waste is classified "H" in the LoW and "NH" by calculation (i.e. an under-estimation of the hazard). For Data Set #1, Method 2 with extended M-factors matches best with the LoW (80% concordant H and non-H by LoW, and 13% discordant for H waste by LoW). This method more correctly classifies wastes containing substances with high ecotoxicity. Methods 1 and 3 have nearly as good matches (76% and 72% concordant H and non-H by LoW, and 13% and 6% respectively discordant for H waste by LoW). Method 2 with extended M-factors, but limited to the M-factors published in the CLP has insufficient concordance (64% concordant H and non-H by LoW, and 50% discordant for H waste by LoW). As the same method with extended M-factors gives the best performance, the lower performance is due to the limited set of M-factors in the CLP. Method 4 is divergent (60% concordant H and non-H by LoW, and 56% discordant for H waste by LoW). For Data Set #2, Methods 2 and 4 do not correctly classify 24 air pollution control residues from incineration 19 01...

Hazard Classification of Waste: Review of Available Practical Methods and Tools

“…See for instance CEWEP 2017) must be used in the HP 14 calculation. This approach has been proven to be consistent for a large set of waste with the European List of Waste classification and the calculation method with M-factors (Hennebert et al 2016b). Tables of lowest EC 50 and NOEC are supplied in this later paper.…”

“…This multiplier (10, 100, 1000…) depends on the ecotoxicological effects of pure substances observed in ecotoxicological laboratory tests for substance classification. The method with M factors (CLP method limited to the level 1 and 2 of chronic ecotoxicity) has the best correspondence (80%) with the European List of Waste (Hennebert et al 2014, 2016b, MEEM 2015. The list of harmonized M-factors is continuously completed (for instance 10 M-factors for copper in ATP9 of CLP (EU 2016)).…”

Comparison of the ecotoxic properties of oil shale industry by-products to those of coal ash

“…The trace element concentrations of the analysed samples are given in Tables 2-4. Based on these it is possible to calculate the ecotoxicity as described by the European Council regulations [18] and also by Hennebert et al [19]. The results of the calculation of the ecotoxicity values for these samples can be found elsewhere [41].…”

“…The precise guideline was provided only in the above EU Council Regulation 2017/997 [18]. The methods are best described by Hennebert et al [19]. To sum up, elements were assigned different multiplication factors (M-factors), which take into account the toxicity and dangerousness of a specific element, with more hazardous elements and compounds (Hg and PAHs, for example) having higher M-factor values (M-factors for Hg, PAHs and As are 1000, 100 and 10, respectively).…”

Ecotoxicity attenuation by acid-resistant nanofiltration in scandium recovery from TiO2 production waste

“…A revised Appendix III of the Waste Framework Directive 2008/98/EC [ 42 ] was published in 2014, with 14 out of 15 redefined hazardous properties for waste. However, the assessment of hazard property HP14 (‘Ecotoxic’: may present risks for one or more sectors of the environment) has been left unchanged [ 43 ] without any improvement of assessment and testing strategy or specific threshold values [ 39 ]. Suitable test methods for the biological assessment of waste and waste eluates are recommended by the CEN (European Committee for Standardization) guideline 14735.…”