Posted: February 19, 2015
Source: Environmental Leader.com By: Jon Elliott, President, Touchstone Environmental Contributor, Specialty Technical Publishers
The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and its state counterparts provide requirements to govern hazardous wastes during every step of their management, from “cradle to grave.” Although these rules are intended to improve management and provide incentives for recycling and other beneficial uses of hazardous wastes, many organizations find many of the rules unnecessarily onerous – and therefore potentially counterproductive if they actually discourage beneficial activities. In addition, over time changes in technologies, commercial activities and regulatory priorities reveal gaps in existing rules. In January, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) revised its “Definition of Solid Waste” rules governing a number of potentially hazardous wastes that it instead considers to be “hazardous secondary materials,” and the range of recycling and recovery activities eligible for special regulatory considerations. The revisions become effective on July 13, 2015.
What Are ‘Hazardous Secondary Materials?’
EPA has revised exclusions from the category of (potential) hazardous wastes defined as hazardous secondary materials. The general definition remains the same:
Hazardous secondary material means a secondary material (e.g., spent material, by-product, or sludge) that, when discarded, would be identified as hazardous waste under part 261 of this chapter.
EPA’s use of the subjunctive “would be discarded” tells us how EPA considers spent materials, by-products and sludges that are managed in some way other than being discarded. The most recent changes revise the lists of materials being addressed, and the non-discard activities that qualify for special regulatory consideration. Most importantly, reclamation of a hazardous secondary material may qualify for one of two dozen exclusions—a specified material managed in a specified way is not a solid waste (i.e., is excluded from the definition, and therefore from all associated regulatory requirements).
Continue reading Demystifying New EPA Rules for Recycling Selected Hazardous Wastes