The Importance Of An Integrated Management System In The Waste Industry

Waste policy, regulation and Government support have been major drivers of positive change in England and Wales over the last 20 years. The creation of the Waste and Resources Action Program (WRAP) as the Government's main delivery body for the provision of advice on waste reduction, recycling and resource efficiency in England has encouraged companies to track their waste in a more productive manner.

To further highlight the importance of this, the EU Commission estimates that better waste and resource management could contribute an additional 3% to GDP in Europe. Limited information on waste arisings and treatment, however, can have widespread consequences on policy making and investment decisions.

So with the above considered, it's safe to predict that waste management regulation won't be going anywhere soon.

For Enviroclear, who operate in both England and Wales, adhering to the stipulations of the Environmental Agency in England and the Natural Resource Agency in Wales, is a big ask. The company communicates the types of waste they handle at their transfer station and this ensures that they can verify that they are operating to the permit conditions set out by either agency.

Both regulatory organisations focus on hazardous waste and non-hazardous waste respectively; therefore a simple, efficient and flexible management system is required in order to keep data together, and reduce time when providing relevant information to regulatory authorities.

Many companies within the industry already utilise an Integrated Management Systems (IMS). Some use an internal resource for the whole process, and others, like Enviroclear, outsource the bulk of the work to a consultancy in order to assist with the process.

However, in today's world, with good communications, ever increasing transparency, and more emphasis on regulation in the waste management industry, a productive Integrated Management System is paramount to successful reporting.

What should be 'integrated'?

Anything which has an effect on business results must be part of a management system.

For companies residing in the waste management industry, an effective IMS should be able to integrate with current operating systems and help streamline the processes of reporting on activity.

If your company has many different systems to comply with, having a decent Integrated Management System that includes health and safety and environmental information is important.

Integrated management is a concept whereby functional management is dispersed throughout an organisation, so that managers can manage a range of functions.

At Enviroclear, the information needed to provide to various environmental organisations is handled through their IMS.

The system helps to clean up all the data and can be gathered in one place for it to be then sent to the correct agencies.

David Worthington, Technical & Compliance Manager at Envrioclear believes that having a robust integrated management system allows you to locate documents when needed and is key to any business within the waste management industry.

He said: "A good integrated management system is the most important thing for me. When we're dealing with various different agencies (that want to see different kinds of data) having access to everything in the same place is helps productivity.

"Some people may be put off by the work involved in developing an IMS. We developed ours internally and it now contains thousands of different files. We now employ a consultancy to help us manage our IMS.

"We now have a system that is able to locate the data we've captured in order to deliver back and ensure that we're meeting regulation.

"It's my number one tip, ensure you have a robust and effective IMS!"

Enviroclear was formed in the year 2000 and has since become a leading player in the waste industry. The company, which is managed by three directors and deals in the safe disposal and transportation of various forms of waste across the United Kingdom.

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