Guidelines Environmentally Management Wastes Mercury

Draft Technical Guidelines for the Environmentally Sound Management of Wastes Consisting of Elemental Mercury and Wastes Containing or Contaminated with Mercury

The scope of the current document is to derive criteria for defining the Annex III hazard characteristic H10 liberation of toxic gasses in contact with water or air and to create a practical tool for the classification of wastes with regard to this characteristic.

These criteria are based upon the work developed under the GHS, with specific reference to the fact that waste typically occurs as a mixture of substances with (at least partly) unknown composition.

Moreover, waste typically have a relatively low monetary value and therefore costly test methods for single batches of waste will typically be too costly and should therefore be limited if possible. To that end a stepwise procedure will be described to address this specific situation for classification of waste.

The current stage of development of the criteria in this document already provides for a first tool that could be used in practise. However further development on certain aspects may be needed and should be included in future versions of the document as appropriate.

Basel Convention
7^th Draft (26 July 2011)