Published on April 04, 2019.-
In 2001, Chile signed the Stockholm Convention, which stipulates that a series of hazardous wastes, such as PCBs (Polychlorinated Biphenyls) contained mainly in dielectric oils inside electrical transformers and capacitors, must be inventoried, labeled and withdrawn from the market before 2025, to be permanently eliminated in 2028.
Hidronor is one of the pioneer companies in Chile to implement an export line for these wastes and has all the capacities and permits to store and transport them to plants in countries - mainly European - that have the technology for their disposal.
In this context, the company recently managed the export of a shipment - which left on March 25, 2019 from the port of San Antonio bound for the Netherlands - with six containers marítimos con cerca de 100 toneladas de residuos, entre los cuales figuraban sólidos contaminados con PCB y aceites dieléctricos.
Katia Villalobos, Hidronor's Head of Industrial Sales, explains that, in order to carry out this shipment, the company had to obtain all the necessary permits from the Ministry of the Environment, in addition to visiting the target plants for disposal in Europe, where it counts. with commercial agreements for the reception and elimination of waste with the most relevant companies in that continent.
"Hidronor has been the first company in the country that, since its inception in the 90s, began to provide this waste export service without disposal treatment in Chile, which has been very relevant, since we have all experienced the regulatory changes that the export process implies from the creation of the Ministry of the Environment to the signing of the treaties of the different countries in transit through which the waste passes to its destination. This experience allows us to carry out this management in the best way and it should be noted that we have all the health and environmental authorizations for the correct storage of waste, such as PCBs or pesticides that have organo-chlorinated and / or halogenated components, which they are conditioned according to national and international regulations to be exported to final destruction centers, strictly complying with the Basel Convention on the control of transboundary movements of hazardous wastes and their disposal ”, he points out.
