De Waste (U) Ltd, a company that provides waste management services to the industrial, municipal, and public sectors, has penetrated the regional waste management market in East Africa, winning business in neighboring South Sudan.

The company attributes this milestone to the deliberate emphasis that the firm puts on health, safety, and the environment while executing its work. This has given the company a unique brand as one compliant with the required standards for waste management, a requirement for doing business in South Sudan.

“Prospects who seek the services that we offer take health, safety, and environment seriously when awarding contracts to waste management companies and it being the cornerstone of De-waste (U) Ltd’s work, the company has attracted business from important organizations or big clients who ask for it.” Miss Swabrah Wakiwa, the Human Resource Manager at De Waste (U) Ltd, said.

She said their uniqueness as a brand that values health, safety, and the environment has this year secured business for the company in Uganda’s oil and gas sector. “This year we managed to get work in oil and gas because the gist of the oil and gas industry is that they emphasize health, safety, and the environment.” Miss Swabrah reiterated.

In 2018, De-Waste (U) Ltd sought to seal her brand as a company that prioritizes health, safety, and environment when it embarked on a journey to implement an integrated health, safety, and environment management system based on ISO 45001:2015 and ISO 14001:2015.

De Waste (U) Ltd was motivated to implement the integrated management system after realizing that the work that the company does was very contagious and risky for both the environment and the people who work for the company. “We took on the system so that we could minimize the impact of our work on the environment and on the health and safety of our staff.” Miss Wakiwa Swabrah said

“We handle hazardous waste, which includes waste from hospitals and clinics. We also handle industrial waste, expired drugs, pharmaceuticals, and used oil. If you don’t follow certain procedures in managing those wastes, they might end up in the wrong hands. For example, if there is a spill of used oil and you don’t have any procedures for managing spills, someone else might try to manage the spill, and an incident can occur. You might have a spill that you need to manage without water, but someone might come and pour water on it. This will cause a reaction and might cause an incident in which you lose your life.” Miss Swabrah said.

As a result, the company implemented the integrated health, safety, and environmental management system because it provides different procedures on how to manage the different wastes that the company handles, minimizing the impact of the waste on the environment and on people who come in contact with the waste.

With the health, safety, and environment management system in place, De-Waste (U) Ltd can now monitor and find solutions to all current and emergent incidents that happen. “The system requires us to record and report on all incidences that happen daily. In case an incident happens, we do incident reports where we document all the incidents that happen or nearly happen daily. We use the incident report to educate our people about the incident, how it happened, what caused it, and how the risk was mitigated. In doing so, we equip the staff with the required knowledge and skills that they can apply to curb current and future incidents.” Miss Swabrah said.

De-waste prioritizes the creation of awareness as an important step in implementing their health, Safety and environment management systems through different trainings organized for staff and daily talks referred by the company as (Tool Box Talks) held between staff and supervisors to talk about the small things/incidents that the staff might not take seriously yet impact the environment and their health and safety so that they are helped to realize that the small things they ignore are dangerous and should take into consideration for their health and safety and also for the proper management of the environment.

Prioritizing health, safety, and the environment as the bedrock of the company’s work has established De-waste (U) Ltd. as a unique brand that organizations want to work with.