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Hazardous waste not, want not

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Marcus Morris
  • 18th Wing Public Affairs
KADENA AIR BASE, Japan --  When you are on an island it is important to be environmentally conscious, and no group on base is more ecologically mindful than the 718th Civil Engineer Squadron Hazardous Waste.
Hazardous Waste is in charge of inspecting and regulating more than 150 hazardous waste accumulation points and deals with approximately 550 site managers from Air Force, Army, Navy and Japanese Nationals.

"Most of the hazardous waste on base originates from spill pads, rags, used oil and motor fluid and batteries that aircraft maintenance and vehicle maintenance use," said Kazuhiko Afuso, 718th CES hazardous waste storage. "The oil itself isn't usually a hazardous waste; however, metals such as cadmium and arsenic which help strengthen the engine blocks tend to come with the used oil and are toxic to the environment."

Hazardous Waste also deals with paint thinners and strippers, oxidizers, flammable waste and corrosives. They process more than 500,000 pounds of waste annually.

"This program is a logistics game," said Matthew Higginbotham, 718th CES hazardous waste manager. "We have laws that say no foreign waste can be shipped to the U.S. but we work with Japanese products so we have to get Tosco waivers from the U.S. every five years to ship Japanese transformers that contain hazardous waste to back to the states, because the locals do not want the waste."

"You can do the job sloppily and end up spending a lot of money or you can work in a proactive manner and save money," Higginbotham said.

Higginbotham went on to say "through the proactive use of Environmental Management Systems, the Hazardous Waste Program was able to reduce its annual hazardous waste disposal expenditure from $372,000 to $180,000."

The program did this by working with shop members from across the base to improve their processes and either replaced products being used with nonhazardous materials, properly identified hazardous waste from nonhazardous waste or by improving the effectiveness of the jobs to cut down waste.

"Some of the improvements the hazardous waste program has made this year include managing a centralized rag recycling contract for all maintenance shops on KAB, recycling and reusing 300,000 rags and avoid 20,000 pounds of hazardous waste annually," said Higginbotham. "We also identified and eliminated 49,000 lbs of Halon 1301 and 1211 from the hazardous waste stream, which was recycled for storage at the DOD Ozone Depleting Substances Reserve, saving $1.2 million."

Anything that could affect the environment, this program creates policies and contingencies that help mitigate environmental problems. Not only does the hazardous waste program have to follow Japan Environmental Governing Standards, they also have inspectors from the U.S. monitor their compliance with standards.

It is everyone's responsibility to do their part for proper hazardous waste disposal and not contaminate the ground water source or that person is subject to Japanese law.

"The locals don't have anywhere else to go so we should do a good job of taking care of the island while we are here and be environmentally conscious," Higginbotham said.