National Environmental Management: Waste Act, 2008 (Act No. 59 of 2008)NoticesNorms and Standards for Organic Waste Composting, 202011. Monitoring, Auditing and Reporting |
| (1) | The site must be inspected by the facility operators or employees on a daily basis to ensure early detections and addressing of environmental pollution and weekly reports consolidating the daily inspections' findings should be kept on site. |
| (2) | Compost heap temperature that is high enough to destroy pathogens for the applicable composting method must be maintained and monitored for a time period required for such composting method. |
| (3) | The national, provincial and local authorities must be given access to audit or inspect the facility at any time and at such frequency as the authority may decide. |
| (4) | The audit or inspection reports drafted by the environmental authority must be made available to the facility operator within sixty (60) days of the audit or inspection. |
| (5) | The composting facility manager must, during the audit or inspection, make any records or documentation available to the audit or inspection team as may be required. |
| (6) | Safe disposal certificates for hazardous waste removed from facility must be kept on record for a minimum period of five (5) years. |
| (7) | A record of any finding of non-compliance by the environmental authority and how such non compliances were addressed must be kept in a file and produced upon request by any relevant competent authority. |
| (8) | Internal audits detailing environmental performance of the facility must be conducted every twelve (12)months by the composting facility and official reports thereof must be prepared. Each of the internal audit findings must be made available to the external auditor referred to in sub-paragraph (9) below and to the environmental authority upon request. Audit reports must be in the format specified by the provincial authority. |
| (9) | The composting facility must ensure that external audits of the facility are conducted every twenty four (24) months by an independent auditor and the auditor must prepare an official audit report documenting the audit findings. |
| (10) | The external audit report must be submitted to the provincial authority upon request and must include, but not limited to the following: |
| (a) | An indication of compliance of the facility with these Norms and Standards and the composting facility's environmental management programme as approved by the provincial authority; |
| (b) | An indication of compliance with any specific requirements issued by the relevant authority either at national, provincial or local sphere of government; |
| (c) | An indication of any major environmental incidents or non-compliance that occurred and details of the manner the incidents or non-compliance were addressed; |
| (d) | An indication of the presence of records of safe disposal certificates for all hazardous and general waste removed from the facility; and |
| (e) | An indication if hazardous waste is separated from general waste and that such waste is removed by a registered waste handling company for either recycling or disposal at licenced disposal facility. |