Frequently Asked Questions

Yes. Absolute Environmental Solutions Ltd is registered with the Environment Agency as an upper tier waste broker and dealer, registration number CBDU309472, which permits us to arrange the disposal and recovery of waste on your behalf.

It is worth being precise about what that means: it is not a carrier registration and we do not hold one. We do not collect or transport waste ourselves. Every physical movement is carried out by a registered carrier we appoint and check, to a permitted or exempt facility we have verified.

Search the Environment Agency's public register of waste carriers, brokers and dealers for CBDU309472. The register is free, public and updated by the Agency rather than by us, which is why we link to it rather than showing a certificate image.

We can also supply the registration certificate, our insurance certificates and sample duty-of-care documentation for a procurement or pre-qualification pack, usually the same day.

No. We are a registered waste broker and dealer: we audit, manage and coordinate your waste, and appoint vetted, licensed carriers and permitted facilities to carry out collection and disposal. You receive one managed service and full duty-of-care documentation.

No — and anyone who tells you otherwise is worth avoiding. Under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 the duty of care sits with the waste producer, and handing waste to somebody else does not end it. You remain responsible for describing the waste accurately and for satisfying yourself that whoever takes it is authorised to.

What a broker does is make that duty practical to discharge. We classify the waste, check the carrier and the destination before either attends, and return the documentation that demonstrates you did so.

Every project returns a documentation pack. For non-hazardous waste that is a waste transfer note; for hazardous waste it is a consignment note. Both come with the carrier's registration number, the receiving facility's environmental permit or exemption reference, the EWC code applied to each stream, weighbridge tickets where the load was weighed, and confirmation of final disposal or recovery.

You are legally required to keep transfer notes for two years and consignment notes for three, so the pack is issued in a form you can file.

It depends on what is in it and at what concentration, not on what it looks like or what the container originally held. The classification is made against the hazardous properties set out in the List of Wastes and coded with a six-digit European Waste Catalogue (EWC) code.

In practice, a safety data sheet answers it for most manufactured products. Where a stream is mixed, unlabelled or has degraded — which is normal for anything that has been sitting in a yard — we arrange sampling and analysis rather than guessing. Guessing in either direction is expensive: over-classification costs money on every load, and under-classification is a breach.

Hazardous waste is waste that has one or more of the fifteen hazardous properties (HP1 to HP15) defined in law — such as being flammable, corrosive, toxic or harmful to the environment — and it carries a starred six-digit code in the List of Waste. Everything else is non-hazardous.

The distinction is not cosmetic. Hazardous waste has to move on a consignment note rather than a transfer note, can only go to a facility permitted to accept that specific waste, and is subject to stricter storage and record-keeping. That is why getting the classification right is the decision that governs the cost and the compliance of everything downstream.

No. Mixing a hazardous waste with a non-hazardous waste, or mixing two different hazardous wastes, is prohibited except under a permit that specifically allows it — and doing so can turn an entire load into hazardous waste, so a single contaminating item makes the whole container more expensive and harder to place.

The answer is segregation at source: separate containers for separate streams, correctly described. Part of what we do on the first survey is set that segregation up, because it is far cheaper to keep streams apart than to have a facility reject a mixed load at the gate.

It is classified and disposed of as a waste in its own right, through a permitted facility, with duty-of-care paperwork returned to you. The silt and hydrocarbon sludge recovered from a separator is very often hazardous, whatever the site produces above ground.

We establish what the chambers hold before anything is moved, appoint and check the carrier, and route the material to a site authorised to take it. The service report records how full each chamber was on arrival, which is what lets us recommend a sensible emptying interval rather than a default one.

It is routed to recovery rather than disposal wherever the waste hierarchy and the economics allow — scrap metal, redundant plant, packaging and clean segregated materials often have a value, or at least avoid the landfill tax that disposal attracts.

That is a large part of where a clearance saves money: the more carefully a building is separated on the way out, the more of it goes to a recovery route rather than into a mixed skip priced at the disposal rate. The report you receive sets out where each stream went.

Into the colour-coded containers set out in healthcare waste guidance: purple-lidded receptacles for cytotoxic and cytostatic medicines, which are hazardous, and blue-lidded receptacles for other, non-hazardous medicinal waste. Sharps and infectious waste are separate again.

Getting the segregation right at the point of disposal is what keeps the hazardous stream small and the cost proportionate. We advise on the container regime for your site as part of the consultation, so the right waste ends up in the right bin before it ever leaves the premises.

The metal is sent for recycling wherever it can be, and any hazardous residue or contaminated material is consigned to a permitted facility. Recovering the steel keeps material out of disposal and offsets part of the cost of the job.

You receive the duty-of-care paperwork for every stream that leaves the site — the residues, the contaminated items and the vessel itself — with the classification and the receiving facility recorded for each.

Often, yes — the inside of a tank or vessel is a confined space, and entering one is one of the higher-risk jobs on any site. It is planned and controlled accordingly: a risk assessment and method statement, atmosphere testing for oxygen and for flammable or toxic vapour, forced ventilation, and trained operatives with the right rescue arrangements in place.

Where the work can be done without entry — by remote or no-man-entry methods — that is preferred, because the safest confined space is the one nobody has to go into. The cleaning is carried out by contractors we appoint and check against those controls.

Yes, and it is one of the main reasons to use us rather than a general clearance firm. We identify and code the hazardous streams — drums, part-used product, laboratory chemicals, contaminated items — separately from the general waste, and arrange the right consigned route for each.

Where a material is unlabelled or has degraded we sample it rather than guess. Hazardous movements go out on consignment notes to permitted facilities; the rest goes on transfer notes. Everything comes back to you documented.

Medicines and medicinal products that are no longer wanted — expired, part-used, damaged or recalled stock, along with the containers and packaging that held them. It runs from a care home’s unused tablets to a manufacturer’s reject batch.

The important split is between cytotoxic and cytostatic medicines, which are hazardous waste (List of Waste code 18 01 08* in a healthcare setting, 20 01 31* elsewhere), and other medicinal waste, which is not (18 01 09 / 20 01 32). The two must be segregated, because handling everything as hazardous is wasteful and handling everything as non-hazardous is a breach.

Yes. Controlled drugs have to be denatured — rendered irretrievable — before they are disposed of, and depending on the setting their destruction may need to be witnessed by an authorised person and recorded. We arrange this through contractors holding the appropriate authorisations under the Misuse of Drugs Regulations.

As with everything we handle, we arrange and manage the process and appoint the licensed party who carries it out; we do not transport the waste ourselves. The documentation that evidences lawful destruction comes back to you.

Yes, and that is exactly where the care goes. A tank that has held a flammable or volatile product retains vapour long after it looks empty, so it is emptied, cleaned and gas-freed, and its atmosphere is tested to confirm it is safe, before any cutting or hot work starts.

The residue left in the bottom of such a tank is frequently hazardous even when the bulk product was not, so it is sampled and classified rather than assumed. The work is carried out by contractors we appoint and check, to the appropriate confined-space and hot-work controls.

Yes. Total waste management covers every stream, from general and dry mixed recycling to food, WEEE/electronics and hazardous or specialist waste, each classified and routed correctly.

A visit to your site, an inventory of what you are producing or storing, and a written cost-saving report and proposal afterwards. There is no charge for either and no obligation to proceed.

The report sets out each waste stream, the classification we would apply, the disposal or recovery route we recommend, and what it should cost. Most clients find at least one stream they have been paying the wrong price for.

The whole of the United Kingdom. We are based at Gallan Park in Cannock, Staffordshire, which puts most of the Midlands within an easy drive for a survey, and we arrange and manage projects nationally through our contractor network.

Because we appoint contractors on a per-project basis rather than running our own fleet, distance affects the price far less than it would with a single-operator supplier — we are choosing from whoever is best placed for your site.

We provide project delivery and support 24 hours a day. For an urgent situation — a spill, a failed inspection, a blocked interceptor or a shutdown — call rather than emailing, and we will start arranging attendance immediately.

How fast a contractor can be on site depends on the work and the location, but we will tell you honestly what is achievable when you call rather than promising a time we cannot hold.

At least every six months for most sites, and more often where the unit loads quickly — a busy fuel forecourt or a yard that takes a lot of silt can need quarterly attention.

The right interval is the one your unit actually needs rather than a default, which is why our service reports record how full each chamber was on arrival. A separator only works while there is space in it, and an overflow discharges hydrocarbons to surface water — which is treated far more seriously than an overdue service.

No. Removing and disposing of the contents is part of the job, and it is usually better that we handle it — the residue at the bottom of a tank is rarely the same waste as the product it held, and is frequently hazardous when the bulk product was not.

What does help is knowing what the tank has held, including historically. If there is any doubt, we sample it before anything is moved.

Fuel, oil, chemical, process, effluent and water tanks, above ground or below it, from a single small vessel to a multi-tank installation. The cleaning method follows the contents and the confined-space risk, not the label on the outside.

Where a tank has held a flammable or a volatile product it is gas-freed and its atmosphere tested before anyone enters or any hot work begins. The recovered residue is classified in its own right, because what settles at the bottom of a tank is often a different, and more hazardous, waste than the product the tank was holding.

An interceptor — also called an oil or petrol separator — is a chambered unit in a site’s surface-water drainage that holds back silt and separates out oil and fuel before the water discharges. You find them on forecourts, in yards, car parks and anywhere vehicles or plant stand.

It works by letting flow slow down so that heavier silt settles and lighter hydrocarbons rise, both held back while the cleaner water passes on. That only continues to work while there is room in the chambers, which is why regular emptying is not optional maintenance — a full separator passes oil straight to the drain it was fitted to protect.

Clearing everything left on a site — general and bulky waste, redundant plant, stock and often part-used chemicals — segregating it into streams, arranging compliant disposal or recovery for each, and handing back the building with a complete duty-of-care file. It is the service most often needed at the end of a lease, a closure or a refurbishment.

We survey the site first so that segregation is planned before a single container arrives. Clearing a building as one mixed load is the expensive answer twice over: it pays a hazardous rate on material that is not hazardous, and puts material that is into containers never described to hold it.

Taking a redundant tank, vessel or container safely out of service: isolating it, removing and disposing of the residual contents, cleaning and, where needed, gas-freeing it, then cutting it down and removing it for recycling or disposal. Each stage is planned around your operation so the rest of the site keeps running.

It is evidenced from the first survey to the final consignment note. The residues and the vessel itself are classified and routed separately, because they are usually different wastes.

A waste audit typically finds duplicated collections, oversized containers and mis-classified streams. Rationalising these reduces pickups and cost, and segregated recyclables can generate rebates instead of disposal charges.