5. How to tell if a material is a waste
This information has been prepared by the Ministry for the Environment to provide guidance to industry and organisations involved in managing hazardous or other wastes. The following section outlines a procedure to follow when determining whether a particular material is a waste. The reasons for this procedure is to give handlers of hazardous waste clear direction on what materials will be subject to upcoming waste controls (e.g. record-keeping) or other instruments as part of the New Zealand Waste Strategy (2002).
Definition of Waste
It is not always obvious whether a material is a waste or not and this section seeks to identify common factors which can be evaluated to indicate whether or not a material may be regarded as a waste. These factors should only be used as a guide to identifying wastes, and will not be applicable in every instance.
Waste is defined in the New Zealand Waste Strategy (2002) as any material, whether it is liquid, solid or gas, that is unwanted and unvalued and discarded or discharged by its holder.
In the context of defining waste, 3 codes are used to describe what's "unwanted and unvalued" and "discarded or discharged". The W-Code gives examples of materials that are "unwanted and unvalued" and should be considered when determining the status of a material as a waste.
W-Code: Categories of materials that are unwanted or unvalued
This list is taken from Table 1 of OECD Decision C(88)90(Final).
| W1 | Production residues not otherwise specified below |
| W2 | Off-specification products |
| W3 | Products whose date for appropriate use has expired |
| W4 | Materials spilled, lost or having undergone other mishap including any materials, equipment etc. contaminated as a result of the mishap |
| W5 | Materials contaminated or soiled as a result of planned actions (e.g. residues from cleaning operations, packing materials, containers, etc.) |
| W6 | Unusable parts (e.g. reject batteries, exhausted catalysts, etc.) |
| W7 | Substances which no longer perform satisfactorily (e.g. contaminated acid, contaminated solvents, exhausted tempering salts, etc.) |
| W8 | Residues of industrial processes (e.g. slags, still bottoms, etc.) |
| W9 | Residues from pollution abatement processes (e.g. scrubber sludges, baghouse dusts, spent filters, etc.) |
| W10 | Machining/finishing residues (e.g. lathe turnings, mill scales, etc.) |
| W11 | Residues from raw materials processing (e.g. mining residues, oil field slops, etc.) |
| W12 | Adulterated materials (e.g. oils contaminated with PCBs, etc.) |
| W13 | Any materials, substances or products whose use has been banned by law in the country of exportation |
| W14 | Products for which there is no further use (e.g. agriculture, household, office, commercial and shop discards, etc.) |
| W15 | Materials, substances or products resulting from remedial actions with respect to contaminated land |
| W16 | Any materials, substances or products which the generator or exporter declares to be wastes and which are not contained in the above categories |
In the context of defining waste, "discarded or discharged" relates to a variety of waste management processes. These waste management processes vary from landfill disposal for solid wastes, to recovery operations for solvents for example. The D/R-Codes specify waste management processes, and provide clarification for the term "discarded or discharged" in the Strategy definition of waste. The D-Code illustrates processes by which materials, which are no longer fit for their originally intended purpose, are subjected to final disposal (e.g. landfill, tradewaste, and treatment before disposal). Similarly, the R-Code illustrates processes by which materials, which are no longer fit for their originally intended purpose, are transformed into a usable state or by which materials are extracted in usable form.
If a material is "unwanted or unvalued" according to the W-Code and is destined for a waste management process listed in the D/R-Codes then it is a waste.
D-Code: Disposal Operations which do not lead to the possibility of Resource Recovery, Recycling, Reclamation, Direct Re-use or Alternative Uses
This table is meant to encompass all disposal operations which occur in practice, whether or not they are adequate from the point of view of environmental protection. It is taken from Annex IVA of the Basel Convention, or Table 2A of OECD Decision C(88)90(Final).
| D1 | Deposit into or onto land (e.g. landfill, etc.) |
| D2 | Land treatment (e.g. biodegradation of liquid or sludgy discards in soils, etc.) |
| D3 | Deep injection (e.g. injection of pumpable discards into wells, salt domes or naturally occurring repositories, etc.) |
| D4 | Surface impoundment (e.g. placement of liquid or sludge discards into pits, ponds or lagoons, etc.) |
| D5 | Specially engineered landfill (e.g. placement into lined discrete cells which are capped and isolated from one another and the environment, etc.) |
| D6 | Release into a water body except seas/oceans |
| D7 | Release into seas/oceans including sea-bed insertion |
| D8 | Biological treatment not specified elsewhere in this table or the R-Code which results in final compounds or mixtures which are discarded by means of any of the operations in this table |
| D9 | Physico-chemical treatment not specified elsewhere in this table or the R-Code which results in final compounds or mixtures which are discarded by any of the operations in this table |
| D10 | Incineration on land |
| D11 | Incineration at sea |
| D12 | Permanent storage (e.g. emplacement of containers in a mine, etc.) |
| D13 | Blending or mixing prior to submission to any of the operations in this table |
| D14 | Repackaging prior to submission to any of the operations in this table |
| D15 | Storage pending any of the operations in this table |
R-Code: Disposal Operations which may lead to Resource Recovery, Recycling, Reclamation, Direct Re-Use or Alternative Uses
This table is meant to encompass all operations with respect to materials considered to be wastes and which otherwise would have been destined for disposal operations included in Table 1. It is taken from Annex IVB of the Basel Convention, or Table 2B of OECD Decision C(88)90(Final).
| R1 | Use as a fuel (other than in direct incineration i.e. disposal operations D10 and D11) or other means to generate energy |
| R2 | Solvent reclamation/regeneration |
| R3 | Recycling/reclamation of organic substances which are not used as solvents |
| R4 | Recycling/reclamation of metals and metal compounds |
| R5 | Recycling/reclamation of other inorganic materials |
| R6 | Regeneration of acids or bases |
| R7 | Recovery of components used for pollution abatement |
| R8 | Recovery of components from catalysts |
| R9 | Used oil re-refining or other reuses of previously used oil |
| R10 | Land treatment resulting in benefit to agriculture or ecological improvement |
| R11 | Uses of residual materials obtained from any of the operations numbered R1-R10 |
| R12 | Exchange of wastes for submission to any of the operations numbered R1-R11 |
| R13 | Accumulation of material intended for any operation listed above |
