The Status and Identification of Improvements of Sustainable Hazardous Waste Minimization in a Chemical Company in Krugersdorp

Abstract

This study was necessary because, hazardous waste presents immediate or long-term risks to humans, animals, plants or the environment and it requires special handling in terms of detoxification or safe disposal. The general public associates chemical industries with problems that include waste disposal, pollution, disease danger, depletion of natural resources, and landfill. Chemical industries have developed different initiatives, with varying levels of success or failure, to address the problem of hazardous waste minimization. Waste minimization usually requires knowledge of the production process, cradle to grave analysis (the tracking of materials from their extraction to their return to earth) and detailed knowledge of the composition of the waste.A detailed literature review was undertaken in order to obtain in-depth knowledge of waste minimization concepts and aspects. Legislation concerning waste minimization and management was also discussed. Information gaps and opportunities for improvements of chemical industries' waste minimization strategies were identified from this theoretical study. A questionnaire survey methodology was used in order to systematically identify the solution to this problem. Purposive sampling was used to select the required respondents that were working directly with hazardous waste at the company under study. Inferential and descriptive statistics were used to analyse the data obtained from the questionnaires. About 80.0% of the respondents constituted of mature adults and middle aged employees that is between 35-45 and 18-35 age groups, respectively. About 95.0% of the respondents had at least reached high school. From the results over 60.0% of the respondents also highlighted the importance of awareness and training programmes in order to achieve sustainable hazardous waste minimization in manufacturing companies. Almost 70.0% of the respondents identified opportunities of improvements on issues related to product life cycle and processes.