SEPA
United States
Environmental
Protection Agency
Solid Waste and
Emergency Response
(5305W)
EPA530-F-98-028
November 1998
www.epa.gov/osw
of Solid \Afaste
Environmental
Fact Sheet
EPA Releases RCRA Waste Minimization
PBT Chemical List
The Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) is releasing for public comment a
draft list of certain persistent, bio-
accumulative, and toxic (PBT) chemicals
that may be present in some industrial
hazardous wastes regulated under the
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
(RCRA). These chemicals will be the focus
of source reduction and recycling activities
aimed at reducing their presence in haz-
ardous waste.
Why is EPA taking this action?
EPA believes publishing this list will
raise government, industry, and public
awareness of the potential effects of these
chemicals in the environment and focus
coordinated public and private actions to
reduce the generation of these chemicals
in hazardous waste by 50 percent by the
year 2005 through source reduction and
recycling.
Why are PBT chemicals a
national concern?
PBT chemicals do not readily break
down or decrease in potency after they are
released to the environment, even if
released in very small, legally permitted
quantities. Over time, these chemicals are
likely to accumulate in soils or other
environmental media, be absorbed or
ingested by plants and animals,
accumulate in animal and plant tissue,
pass through the food chain, and
potentially cause long-term human health
or ecological problems (such as cancer and
birth defects in humans or reduced
ecological populations). For this reason,
PBT chemicals are a national and
international environmental concern long
after they are used, generated in
hazardous waste, or released to the
environment.
How and why was the List
developed?
EPA believes there is clear intent in
RCRA, the Clean Air Act, and the
Pollution Prevention Act to focus public
attention on source reduction and
recycling as preferred environmental
management approaches over the
treatment, disposal, or release of harmful
chemicals to the environment. Section
1003(b) of the 1994 Hazardous and Solid
Waste Amendments (HSWA) states as
national policy,
".. . wherever feasible, the generation of
hazardous waste is to be reduced or
eliminated as expeditiously as possible."
The Clean Air Act and the Pollution
Prevention Act contain national policies
that focus on pollution prevention and
recycling rather than forms of toxic waste
management.
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There is also clear intent in RCEA
and in the Emergency Planning and
Community Right to Know Act of 1986
(EPCEA) to inform the public of toxic
releases to the environment and national
progress in reducing these releases at the
source through source reduction and
recycling. RCRA Section 3002(a)(6)
requires the regulated community to
submit reports to EPA on the volume
and toxicity of hazardous wastes
generated and their efforts to reduce the
generation of these wastes (referred to in
RCRA as "waste minimization"). EPCRA
requires the largest users of toxic
chemicals in the regulated community to
report releases of these chemicals to EPA
and requires EPA to make this
information publicly available through
the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI), a
computerized database containing toxic
release information from approximately
22,000 industrial facilities.
States, industry, environmental
groups, and citizens advised EPA in 1994
that waste minimization should consist
of the following:
• Reduce, as a nation, the presence of
the most persistent, bioaccumulative,
and toxic chemicals in industrial
hazardous wastes by 25 percent by
the year 2000 and by 50 percent by
the year 2005.
• Avoid transferring these chemicals
across environmental media.
• Ensure that these chemicals are
reduced at their source whenever
possible, or, when not possible, that
they are recycled in an
environmentally sound manner.
To address these recommendations,
EPA first developed the Waste Minimiza-
tion Prioritization Tool, which scores
thousands of chemicals based on their
mass generated, persistence, bioaccumu-
lation, and toxicity. EPA then identified
the chemicals of greatest concern to the
RCRA program on a national basis. These
are chemicals that: are very persistent,
bioaccumulative, and toxic; are generated
in large volumes or by many facilities; are
present in soils and sediments; and are
hard to manage, clean up, or pose other
RCRA concerns. The proposed RCRA PBT
List contains 53 chemicals that ranked
highest for these factors from a national
perspective: EPA recognizes that other
PBT chemicals may be identified as
priorities by regional, state, or local
organizations or companies, and
encourages coordinated efforts to address
the reduction of those chemicals as well.
How will the List be used?
EPA will use the RCRA PBT List to
focus federal, state, industry, and public
attention on actions that reduce the
generation of these PBT chemicals in
RCRA hazardous waste by 50 percent by
2005. EPA will publish national progress
reports to focus attention on progress
toward our national goals. EPA will also
work with states, industry, and environ-
mental groups through a variety of
approaches, including workshops, tech-
nical assistance programs, partnership
agreements, regulatory reinvention
projects, and other strategies to promote
progress toward the 2005 goal.
Is the RCRA PBT Chemical List
part of the Agency's Multimedia
PBT Strategy?
Yes. Much like EPA's Partners for the
Environment works to integrate the
nearly 30 voluntary pollution prevention
programs in the Agency, the PBT
Strategy will ultimately work to
integrate all of EPA's activities focused on
priority PBTs, including the RCRA PBT
Last. The PBT Strategy will also measure
collective Agency progress on reducing
uses and releases of PBTs in an
unprecedented way, and is initially
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focusing on reducing or eliminating the
releases and uses of 12 Level One
substances highlighted by the Canada- :
U.S. Great Lakes Binational Toxics :<-
Strategy (five of those Level One
chemicals appear on the RCRA PBT
Chemical List). To avoid future PBT
problems, the PBT Strategy also aims to
prevent the introduction of new PBTs in
commerce that may pose an
unreasonable risk. The PBT Strategy
has discussed selecting more chemicals
for the existing RCEA PBT List, should
those candidates meet the proposed PBT
Strategy selection criterion.
How can I get a copy of the RCRA
PBT List?
The List notice and this fact sheet are
available in electronic format on the
Internet at
. For
additional information or to order paper
copies of any documents, call the ECEA
Hotline. Callers within the Washington
Metropolitan Area must dial 703-412-
9810 or TDD 703-412-3323 (hearing
impaired). Long-distance callers may call
1-800-424-9346 or TDD 1-800-553-7672.
The RCEA Hotline operates weekdays,
9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Write to the RCRA
Information Center (5305W), US EPA,
401 M Street, SW, Washington, DC
20460.
Draft RCRA PBT List
No rank ordering is intended in this List; the List treats these chemicals as equal environmental priorities.
CAS Chemical Name
No.
75343 1,1-Dichloroethane
71556 1,1,1-TrichIoroethane
95501 1,2-DichIorobenzene
120821 1,2,4-Trichlorobenzene
95943 1,2,4,5-Tetrachlorobenzene
541731 1,3-Dichlorobenzene
106467 1,4-Dichlorobenzene
91576 2-Methylnaphthalene
95954 2,4,5-Trichlorophenol
101553 4-Bromophenylphenyl
83329 Acenaphthene
208968 Acenaphthylene
120127 Anthracene
7440360 Antimony
7440382 Arsenic
191242 Benzo(g,h,i)perylene
7440417 Beiyllium
117817 ' Bis(2-ethyhexyl '
85687 Butyl benzyl phthalate
7440439 Cadmium
67663 Chloroform
7440473 Chromium
7440508 Copper
57125 Cyanide
84742 Dibutyl phthalate
none Dioxins (PCDD)
959988 Endosulfan,alpha-
33213659 Endosulfan, beta-
CAS Chemical Name
No.
206440 Fluoranthene
86737 Fluorene
none Furans(PCDF)
76448 Heptachlor
1024573 Heptachlor epoxide
118741 Hexachlorobenzene
87683 Hexachlorobutadiene
58899 Hexachlorocyclohexane,
gamma-
7439921 Lead
7439976 Mercury
72435 Methoxychlor
91203 Naphthalene
7440020 Nickel
98953 Nitrobenzene
29082744 Octachlorostyrene
608935 Pentachlorobenzene
82688 Pentachloronitrobenzene
87865 Pentachlorophenol
85018 Phenanthrene
732263 Phenol, 2,4,6-tris
(l,l-dimethylethyl>
108952 Phenol
none Polycyclic aromatic
compounds
129000 Pyrene
7782492 Selenium
7440666 Zinc
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