The BC Hazardous Waste Regulations serves the purpose of protecting human health and the environment by ensuring that the waste is handled and disposed of per the guidelines stipulated under the Environmental Management Act (EMA). EMA forbids the release of hazardous waste in a manner that leads to pollution of the environment, unless for circumstances permitted under the act. BC Hazardous Waste Regulations apply to individuals, property constructors, operators and facilities involved in hazardous waste management. The regulations are imposed by the Regional Operations Branch with assistance from the Conservation Officer Service. The offences and associated penalties are well-defined in the regulations.
British Columbia Hazard Waste Regulations integrate elements such as the technologies used for recycling, treating, transporting, storing, and disposing of hazardous wastes, operators for waste facilities, favourable locations for waste facilities, and the laws and regulations to run such facilities safely and adequately. It also incorporates initiatives necessary for informing and educating the public on hazardous waste regulations. In addition to EMA, other regulations that form the basis for BC Hazardous Waste Regulations include Environmental Assessment Act, Reviewable Projects Regulation, and the Hazard Waste (HW) Regulation. Applicable federal legislations are the Canadian Environmental Protection Act and the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act.
The BC Hazardous Waste Regulations defines what constitutes hazardous waste and classifies them into different categories. It outlines a clear procedure followed for the classification and naming of wastes. Hazardous wastes include dangerous goods, biomedical waste, PCB waste, waste oil, leachable toxic waste, waste asbestos, and wastes that contain dioxin, tetrachloroethylene, or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon. They are classified as gases, flammable solids, flammable liquids, toxic and infectious substances, oxidizing substances, and corrosive substances.
British Columbia (2021). Hazardous waste legislation and regulations are now available in ESdat. ESdat is a specialist environmental database system; used to validate and import a broad spectrum of Environmental Data and to help users analyze and report it.
ESdat Online delivers a highly cost-effective and efficient approach to store your ongoing monitoring environmental data, optionally with a historical data upload provided as a getting started service. ESdat Online is perfect if you want a cloud-based system that collates and reports your ongoing laboratory and field results.
ESdat Server provides the advantages of ESdat Online with the option of adding ESdat Desktop for data experts to upload their historical data, effectively interrogate the raw data being used within the database, and automatically launch and send data to other Desktop Applications such as Surfer, ArcGIS and Excel.
A variety of complementary products are also available to help with related work, such as sample planning and electronic Chain of Custody (LSPECS), offline field data collection or bore logging (pLog), production of bore logs (ESlog) public portals and customized reporting.
All compiled environmental guidelines and standards are shown on the ESdat website. These are pre-loaded into ESdat Online.
References
British Columbia (2021). Hazardous waste legislation and regulations. Retrieved from https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/environment/waste-management/hazardous-waste/legislation-regulations
Ministry of Environment, British Columbia (2016). Hazardous Waste Legislation Guide. Retrieved from https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/environment/waste-management/hazardous-waste/hazardous-waste/legsregs/haz_waste_leg_guide.pdf
