x-sEPA
United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Office of Solid Waste
and Emergency Response
Washington, DC 20460
EPA''530-SW-36-C33
October 1986
Solid Waste
Report to Congress
Minimization of Hazardous Waste
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UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
WASHINGTON, D.C 20460
OCT 3 0 1986
THE ADMINISTRATOR
Honorable George Bush
President of the Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510
Dear Mr. President:
I am pleased to transmit the Report to Congress on Waste
Minimization, in response to section 8002(r) of the Hazardous and
Solid Waste Amendments (HSWA) of 1984.
As requested, this report evaluates the desirability and
feasibility of (a) establishing standards of performance or of
taking additional action to require generators of hazardous waste
to reduce the volume or quantity and toxicity of the hazardous
waste they generate; and (b) establishing, with respect to
hazardous waste, required management practices or other require-
ments to ensure such wastes are managed in ways that minimize
present and future risks to human health and the environment.
The Report, appendices and technical support document are
transmitted in five separate volumes.
Lee M. Thomas
Enclosures
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UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
WASHINGTON. D C 20460
OCT 3 0 1336
THE ADMINISTRATOR
Honorable Thomas P. O'Neill
Speaker of the House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515
Dear Mr. Speaker:
I am pleased to transmit the Report to Congress on Waste
Minimization, in response to section 8002(r) of the Hazardous and
Solid Waste Amendments (HSWA) of 1984.
As requested, this report evaluates the desirability and
feasibility of (a) establishing standards of performance or of
taking additional action to require generators of hazardous waste
to reduce the volume or quantity and toxicity of the hazardous
waste they generate; and (b) establishing, with respect to
hazardous waste, required management practices or other require-
ments to ensure such wastes are managed in ways that minimize
present and future risks to human health and the environment.
The Report, appendices and technical support document are
transmitted in five separate volumes.
Sincerely yours,
Lee M. Thomas
Enclosures
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Report to Congress
Minimization of Hazardous Waste
Prepared by
Office of Solid Waste
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
401 M Street, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20460
nvironmental Protection /••.
• ''. ' ::-.-j:y
.'*•• '.-. j.'v.rn Strett
60604
October 1986
Printed on 75% Recycled Paper
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Executive Summary i
Definition of Terms ii
Why Minimize Waste? v
Incentives and Disincentives for
Waste Minimization vi
Current Waste Minimization
Requirements Aiii
Evaluation of Available
Options for Waste Minimization xiv
Recommendations .xxi
Conclusion xxv
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER ONE: BACKGROUND 5
The Purpose of Waste Minimization 7
Methods of Waste Minimization 11
Incentives and Disincentives for Waste Minimization 15
The Outlook for Federal Waste Minimization Policy 29
CHAPTER TWO: EXISTING WASTE MINIMIZATION
ACTIVITIES 31
Profile of Current Waste Generation 31
Current Industrial Waste Minimization
Practices 43
Activities of States in Support of
Waste Minimization 59
Review of Existing EPA Activities Relating To
Waste Minimization 65
CHAPTER THREE: EVALUATION OF
WASTE MINIMIZATION OPTIONS 81
Criteria for Evaluating Waste
Minimization Options 82
Discussion of Options 90
CHAPTER FOUR: RECOMMENDATIONS 121
EPA's Recommended
Waste Minimization Strategy 124
Conclusion 133
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LIST OF FIGURES
NUMBER TITLE PAGE
1 Waste Minimization Techniques iii
2 Incentives and Disincentives for Various Waste
Minimization Techniques vii
1 -1 Schematic Diagram of the National
Waste System 12
2-1 Industry Ranking by Hazardous Waste Generation 34
2-2 Hazardous Waste Stream Volume 37
2-3 Hazardous Waste Stream Toxicity Scores:
Descending Order of Waste Stream Volume 37
2-4 Distribution of Small Quantity Generators by Industry Group 42
2-5 Distribution of Small Quantity Generator Waste
by Waste Stream. .42
2-6 Comparison of Total Volume Hazardous Waste
Generated to Total Volume Recycled by SIC Category 54
2-7 Distribution of Total Volume of Hazardous
Waste Recycled during 1981, by SIC Category 54
2-8 Major Recycling Practices for Selected Waste
Streams from the RIA TSDF Survey 56
3-1 Options: Timeline of Estimated Implementation .91
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LIST OF TABLES
NUMBER TITLE PAGE
1 -1 Working Definitions of Waste Minimization
Related Terms 8
2-1 Waste Stream Volumes for Highest Volume Generators 36
2-2 Comparison of Waste S treams for Three Industry Categories 40
2-3 Estimated Extent of Current and Future Source Reduction 46
2-4 Ten Highest Volume Waste Generating Industries 52
2-5 Summary of States' Waste Minimization Activities 62
3-1 Summary of Advantages and Disadvantages of Waste
Minimization Options 92
4-1 Data Needs and Potential Sources for Future Waste
Minimization Analysis 128
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Report to Congress
MINIMIZATION OF HAZARDOUS WASTE
Summary of Recommendations
The Environmental Protection Agency has concluded that mandatory standards of
performance and required management practices are not feasible or desirable at this time. The
Agency recommends that the effect on waste minimization of the land disposal restrictions and other
HSWA mandates, as well as amendments to CERCLA, be quantified and analyzed. EPA will report
back to Congress on this determination in December 1990, the earliest date at which it believes a
recommendation on the need for a major waste minimization regulatory program could be made.
Until that time, however, EPA recommends a three point waste minimization strategy:
Information Gathering
Continuing collection of information on waste stream volume and composition, generation
rates by various types and sizes of generators, adequacy of capacity for TSD facilities, and the
cumulative effect of HSWA requirements on voluntary waste minimization practices.
Core Waste Minimization Program
— Development and publication of informal guidance on waste minimization for the purpose of the
reporting and certification requirements of HSWA Sections 3002 and 3005.
— Provision of a technical and information assistance program to generators and to States to aid in
the development of waste minimization programs.
— Assistance to specific States to develop programs for providing direct technical assistance to
generators (e.g., using waste audits, dissemination of technical information, applied research on
new applications of existing technology).
— Highlight ongoing research and development and economic feasibility studies that might serve an
entire region or have regional application.
— Development of an information system on waste minimization, accessible by the States.
— Implementation of mandatory controls, as needed, for controlling the generation of wastes for
specific industries or processes using current authority under TSCA Section 6.
— Incorporation of waste minimization into the review of TSCA Premanufacture Notices.
Longer Term Options
After evaluation of information gathered in the short term, EPA may better assess in its 1990
report to Congress that additional authority to adopt mandatory standards of performance or
management practices as a means of reducing wastes would be warranted.
In the interim, EPA will continue to examine the specific elements of the "core" waste
minimization program and consider the need for longer term options, if needed. As part of the next
RCRA reauthorization, EPA will provide Congress with its most current assessment of the need to
modify the existing waste minimization requirements for generators and TSDFs Among the
possible options to consider would be:
— To prohibit, where appropriate, certification of certain types of waste management practices as
waste minimization.
— To specify what may be certified as waste minimization.
— To define necessary documentation for certifications that state that waste minimixation is not
economically practicable.
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Report to Congress on Minimization of Hazardous Waste
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This Report to Congress is submitted in response to the requirements of Section
8002(r) of the Solid Waste Disposal Act, as amended by the Resource Conservation and
Recovery Act (RCRA) of-1976, and the Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments
(HSWA) of 1984.1 Under this section, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) is required to submit a Report to Congress by October 1, 1986,
recommending any legislative changes that are feasible and desirable to implement
HSWA's policy with respect to the minimization of hazardous waste:
The Congress hereby declares it to be the national policy of the United
States that, wherever feasible, the generation of hazardous waste is to be
reduced or eliminated as expeditiously as possible. Waste that is
nevertheless generated should be treated, stored or disposed of so as to
minimize the present and future threat to human health and the environment.
Section 8002(r) requires the Administrator to evaluate specifically the feasibility and
desirability of:
1. Establishing standards of performance or of taking other additional
actions under RCRA to require generators of hazardous waste to
reduce the volume or quantity and toxicity of the hazardous waste
they generate; and
1 Reflecting common usage, the amended Solid Waste Disposal Act will hereafter be generally
referred to as RCRA. Additions to RCRA made by the 1984 amendments will be referred to in the
text as HSWA.
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Executive Summary
2. Establishing, with respect to hazardous waste, required management
practices or other requirements to ensure such wastes are managed
in ways that minimize present and future risks to human health and
the environment.
Definition of Terms
The following definitions, based in part on the interpretations presented below, are
crucial to the recommendations made in this report (see also Figure 1):
Source reduction refers to the reduction or elimination of waste generation at
the source, usually within a process. Source reduction measures can
include some types of treatment processes, but they also include process
modifications, feedstock substitutions or improvements in feedstock purity,
various housekeeping and management practices, increases in the efficiency
of machinery, and even recycling within a process. Source reduction
implies any action that reduces the amount of waste exiting from a process.
Recycling refers to the use or reuse of a waste as an effective substitute for a
commercial product, or as an ingredient or feedstock in an industrial
process. It also refers to the reclamation of useful constituent fractions
within a waste material or removal of contaminants from a waste to allow it
to be reused. As used in this report, recycling implies use, reuse, or
reclamation of a waste either onsite or offsite after it is generated by a
particular process.
Waste minimization means the reduction, to the extent feasible, of
hazardous waste that is generated or subsequently treated, stored, or
disposed of. It includes any source reduction or recycling activity
undertaken by a generator that results in either (1) the reduction of total
volume or quantity of hazardous waste, or (2) the reduction of toxicity of
hazardous waste, or both, so long as the reduction is consistent with the
goal of minimizing present and future threats to human health and the
environment
In the broadest sense, the HSWA defines waste minimization as any action taken to
reduce the volume or toxicity of wastes. That definition includes the concept of waste
treatment, which encompasses such technologies as incineration, chemical detoxification,
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FIGURE 1
WASTE MINIMIZATION TECHNIQUES
RECYCLING
ONSITE/OFFSITE
SOURCE REDUCTION
USE / REUSE
'Ingredient in a process
'Effective substitute
RECLAIM
'Processed to recover
usable product
'Regeneration
SOURCE CONTROL
J_
GOOD HOUSEKEEPING
PRACTICES
'Waste stream segregation
"Inventory control
'Employee training
'Spill/leak prevention
'Scheduling improvement
INPUT MATERIAL
MODIFICATION
'Input purification
'Input substitution
TREATMENT
PRODUCT
SUBSTITUTION
QI-O
TECHNOLOGY
MODIFICATION
'Improved Controls
'Process Modifications
'Equipment Changes
•Energy Conservation
'Water Conservation
I
C/3
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Executive Summary
biological treatments, and others.^ The Agency has already embarked on a broad program
for waste treatment; thus, this report focuses on source reduction and recycling, the two
aspects of waste minimization where basic options still remain open.
Section 1003 of HSWA establishes the general national policy in favor of waste
minimization and refers to the need to reduce the "volume or quantity and toxicity" of
hazardous wastes. EPA does not interpret this language to indicate that Congress rejected
volume reduction alone (with no change in the toxicity of hazardous constituents) as being
a legitimate form of waste minimization. A generator that reduces the volume of its
hazardous waste, even if the composition of its waste does not change, is accomplishing
beneficial waste minimization. EPA believes that waste concentration may occasionally be
a useful waste minimization technique (e.g., in preparing materials for recycling). The key
concept, however, is that waste minimization must be protective of human health and the
environment.
Because both volume and toxicity of wastes present dangers to human health and
the environment, measuring the effectiveness of waste minimization will be complex.
First, waste minimization measures are likely to be process and industry specific, implying
that different measurement techniques might be needed in different contexts; second, any
mandatory requirements for reducing the volume or toxicity of generated waste should
directly relate to expected reductions in risk to human health and the environment. EPA has
already developed data and methodologies that can be used to evaluate the risks of many
types of waste streams, as well as the risk reductions associated with waste management
practices.3 These evaluation techniques will continue to improve and become more
effective as a tool in regulatory decision making. EPA therefore intends to use such
assessments as a means of measuring progress in waste minimization and to help establish
2 Section 1003(a)(6) of HSWA states that the objectives of "promot[ing] the protection of health and
the environment and conserving] valuable material and energy resources" can be done by
"minimizing the generation of hazardous waste and the land disposal of hazardous waste by
encouraging process substitutions, materials recovery, properly conducted recycling and reuse, and
treatment" [italics added].
3 These include, for example, the Liner Location Model and the RCRA Risk/Cost Analysis Model
(usually referred to as the Waste-Environment-Technology or W-E-T model).
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Executive Summary
priorities among or within possible waste minimization regulatory schemes. This approach
is consistent with the general principle that any waste minimization regulations should seek
to reduce significant remaining risks.
Why Minimize Waste?
The RCRA program over the past ten years has focused primarily on correcting the
effects of years of poor management of hazardous wastes by bringing treatment, storage,
and disposal facilities into compliance with national standards that are protective of human
health and the environment. HSWA has continued this policy, but has also shifted the
emphasis of the program away from reforming land disposal practices to a reliance on
waste treatment. Because of its potential for contamination of other environmental media
(e.g., ground water), land disposal—even under strict control—is recognized as the least
desirable method of managing hazardous wastes.
The move toward treatment is a major step forward, but is not a complete answer.
Reforms in land disposal practices and installation of new hazardous waste treatment
capacity are effective responses to managing this country's hazardous waste, but they do
not address the generation of these wastes. Both Congress and EPA believe that
preventing the generation of a waste, when feasible, is inherently preferable to controlling it
after it is generated. Waste minimization can be viewed as a means of reducing the
introduction of hazardous constituents into all environmental media.
Current environmental control programs are designed to protect human health and
the environment. However, control technologies are never 100 percent efficient, and
compliance with regulations under any environmental program can never be perfect, even
with the most stringent enforcement program. Waste minimization can also address the
risks of breakdowns in waste management systems.
In addition to achieving human health and environmental benefits by reducing the
volume and/or toxicity of hazardous wastes, waste minimization can also relieve shortages
of treatment, storage, and disposal capacity. The capacity to accept wastes diverted from
land disposal will be especially limited over the next few years while new facilities are
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Executive Summary
under construction and treatment alternatives are being developed. This process may be
slow, since public opposition makes new hazardous waste facilities extremely difficult to
site. Furthermore, land disposal will continue to be required into the foreseeable future,
even if wastes disposed of in or on the land are detoxified first; hence, capacity needs will
always be a concern. Finally, all forms of waste management—treatment or land
disposal—must allow for industrial growth and thus the need for additional capacity. By
reducing per unit product generation rates, waste minimization can provide at least a partial
answer to these problems.
Incentives and Disincentives for Waste Minimization
Strong incentives already exist to promote waste minimization in the private sector,
including (1) dramatic increases in the price of all forms of hazardous waste management,
partially caused by Federal and State standards, (2) difficulties in siting hazardous waste
management capacity, (3) permitting burdens and corrective action requirements,
(4) financial liability of hazardous waste generators, (5) sharp increases in the cost of
commercial liability insurance, coupled with a steep dropoff in its availability, and (6)
public pressure on industry to reduce the production of waste. There are also
countervailing disincentives. Figure 2 covers the incentives and disincentives that surround
the various waste minimization techniques.
Incentives for Waste Minimization
Increases in the costs of hazardous waste management: EPA and State regulations
have been the primary cause of increased costs in treatment, storage, and disposal of
hazardous wastes, especially in relation to landfills, surface impoundments, and storage
and accumulation tanks. The current series of land disposal restrictions under HSWA will
limit the number of untreated wastes that can be disposed of on land and thus are likely to
increase the cost of disposal. HSWA also imposes more stringent standards on surface
impoundments, which will mean that about half of those now in operation will close. In
addition, the recently promulgated hazardous waste tank rules4 will
51 FR 25421, July 14, 1986
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Executive Summary
INCENTIVES
Increased Cost of Waste Management
Difficulties in siting new HW management
facilities
Permitting Burdens and
Corrective Action Requirements
Financial Liability
of HW Generators
Shortages of Liability Insurance
Public Perception
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
DISINCENTIVES
Economic Barriers
-Lack of Capital
-Financial Liability
Technical Barriers
-Attitudes toward unfamilar methods
-Batch Processes
-Lack of information
-Technical Limits of Process
-Technical Quality Concerns
Regulatory Barriers
-Need to Obtain TSO Permit
-Perceived Stigma of Man'g Haz. Waste
-Revisions to Other Env. Permits
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
RGURE 2 INCENTIVES AND DISINCENTIVES FOR VARIOUS
WASTE MINIMIZATION TECHNIQUES
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Executive Summary
also increase waste management costs. Because of these three factors, generators must
find alternative means for treating, storing, or disposing of their wastes.
Prices for such alternative waste treatment are expected to rise as generators
compete for scarce treatment capacity (such as incineration or chemical detoxification).
EPA has, in fact, already identified shortages of treatment and disposal capacity for solvent
and dioxin wastes in its proposed regulations.5
Overall, the increased costs of waste management provide a strong incentive for
owners and operators to reduce the quantity of waste generated or disposed of through the
use of source reduction and offsite and onsite recycling techniques.
Difficulties in siting hazardous waste treatment, storage, and disposal capacity: The
land disposal restrictions program, as mandated by HSWA, is creating a strong demand for
substantial new waste treatment, storage, and disposal capacity. Hazardous waste
managers are therefore seeking new sites and planning to expand existing ones, but in the
process they are encountering the familiar problem of "not in my community." While there
are some instances where States have been successful in helping to site new hazardous
waste management facilities, local resistance tends to be extremely hard to overcome. This
intense public opposition to the siting of many types of hazardous waste facilities may
cause shortages to persist even when market demand is strong. Generators' only
alternative in many cases may therefore be a reliance on source reduction and onsite
recycling to reduce the amount of waste they would otherwise send to offsite management
facilities.
Permitting burdens and corrective action requirements: Even though the demand
for new treatment and disposal capacity will be high, permitting procedures will tend to
delay the availability of that new capacity, temporarily driving up the costs of all forms of
treatment and disposal. No new hazardous waste management facility may be constructed
until it has acquired a RCRA permit—a costly process that usually takes several years to
complete. In addition, all permits issued after November 8, 1984, include provisions
requiring owners and operators to take corrective action for releases of hazardous waste,
51 FR 1729, January 14, 1986
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Executive Summary
regardless of when it was placed in the unit, both within and beyond property boundaries
as necessary to protect human health and the environment This potentially very expensive
requirement applies to all facilities seeking a new RCRA permit, including both existing
and new facilities. Additionally, even though the demand for new treatment and disposal
capacity will be high, permitting procedures will tend to delay the availability of that new
capacity, temporarily driving up the costs of all forms of treatment and disposal.
Thus, the increased costs of permitting burdens and corrective action provide still
another strong incentive for owners and operators to reduce the quantity of waste generated
or disposed of through the use of source reduction and offsite and onsite recycling
techniques.
Financial liability of hazardous waste generators: Generators using offsite
treatment, storage, or disposal face financial liability for two reasons: (1) there is a
potential for mismanagement of wastes by facility operators, and (2) there is the possibility
of improper design of the disposal facility itself. Even careful evaluation of facility
management cannot reduce these risks to zero. A generator risks incurring liability when
the treatment, storage, or disposal facility (TSDF) owner or operator cannot or will not pay
for remedial or corrective actions made necessary by migration of wastes. In these
situations, generators can be held liable under common law for absolute, strict, joint and
several liability. In addition, the imminent and substantial endangerment provisions in
Sections 106 and 107 of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and
Liability Act (CERCLA), state a generator or generators can be held financially responsible
for the entire cleanup or restoration of a facility. When less waste is generated, it reduces
potential liability for future disposal and thus is an incentive for both source reduction and
onsite recycling.
Shortages of liability insurance: The traditional means for obtaining coverage for
potential hazardous waste management liabilities is through insurance, but, for many
generators and owners or operators of TSDFs, liability insurance is no longer available, or
is available only at extremely high cost. This is particularly true of Environmental
Impairment Liability (EIL) insurance, which until 1985 was an often-used financial
instrument for generators and owners and operators of TSDFs to protect themselves from
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Executive Summary
third-party and government claims for damages resulting from environmental releases of
hazardous substances. In recent years, premiums have increased 50 to 300 percent,
policies have been cancelled even where loss ratios have been excellent, and many
companies have difficulty obtaining coverage at any price. In order to insure themselves
against liability, TSDFs who must comply with Sections 3004 and 3005 (e) of RCRA6
have resorted to creative methods to obtain coverage.7 Until fundamental changes occur in
the insurance marketplace, many generators and TSDFs will continue to have difficulty
meeting liability requirements.
Increases in insurance costs or an inability to obtain insurance will result in higher
treatment and disposal costs or the loss of available treatment or disposal capacity. This
will provide a strong incentive to reduce the quantity of waste to be disposed of through the
application of source reduction and onsite recycling techniques.
Public perception of company responsibilities: While the strongest incentives for
implementing waste minimization techniques are probably economic, many companies are
establishing waste minimization programs out of sensitivity to public concern over toxic
chemicals. This type of corporate good citizenship is felt to produce good relations
between industry and the public. Available information indicates that the larger companies
are most likely to perceive public relations benefits in waste minimization; however, some
medium and small size companies are acting under the same motives.
Disincentives for Waste Minimization
Economic barriers: Even though waste minimization practices often lead to cost
savings, availability of capital for plant modernization is often a significant obstacle to their
implementation. Although major companies may have sufficient access to upgrade
inefficient processes, small and medium sized companies often do not. Firms that have
recently modernized their facilities have reduced incentive to reinvest in alternative
Generators do not have to obtain liability insurance under RCRA.
New instruments they have developed include: (1) formation of associations—captive stock or
mutual insurance companies, (2) licensed carrier fronting programs for trust funds in which banks
hold funds to cover liability, (3) letters of credit, (4) self insurance, and (5) corporate guarantees.
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Executive Summary
processes. Obstacles to plant modernization adversely affect the implementation of source
reduction and onsite recycling when these involve process modifications.
Financial liability can, in at least one circumstance, also be a significant disincentive
for waste minimization because generators who send waste offsite may be liable under
CERCLA and common law for damages caused by their wastes, even if the wastes have
left the plant and are no longer under the firm's control. They may therefore not use
available offsite recycling.
Technical barriers: Some firms may be reluctant to make any modifications to their
production processes for fear of risking the technical quality of their final product. While
these fears may not be well-founded, they can be a significant impediment to innovation.
There may also be, however, significant practical limits to waste minimization,
especially with respect to source reduction, even where firms are actively seeking to
minimize waste. Certain products simply cannot be manufactured without producing
hazardous wastes; excessive waste minimization requirements would, in such cases,
remove products from the market or put companies out of business entirely. A hazardous
waste analog to the zero discharge policy, calling for across-the-board cuts of fixed
percentages of waste generated, is therefore not realistic because, in some situations,
possible source reductions may turn out to be minor and achievable only at great expense.
Another technical consideration affecting waste minimization is that industries
producing high volume or high toxicity wastes often operate largely through batch
processes. This can present problems for certain onsite recycling techniques (e.g., while
light colored off-specification batches of paint can be blended into subsequent darker
colored batches, the opposite is not always true).
Similarly, offsite recycling is often technically limited by process realities and
administrative logistics. Off-specification chemicals (such as pesticides or pharmaceuticals)
are examples of products with little onsite or offsite recycling potential. Even where wastes
are technically recyclable, it may be difficult to accumulate enough waste to make the
activity economically attractive. With respect to offsite recycling, it may be hard to
establish permanent and stable relationships, either onsite among various production lines
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Executive Summary
or offsite among firms; generator and user processes have to be synchronized, purity may
vary over time, volumes of wastes available may not meet minimum reuse needs,
transportation costs have to be acceptable, and price variations in feedstocks and in product
prices inevitably play a crucial role.
Finally, the most significant technical barrier to waste minimization may often be a
lack of suitable engineering information on source reduction and recycling techniques.
Available information suggests that this is most often the case with small and medium sized
companies.
Regulatory barriers: Some of the provisions of current environmental statutes,
including RCRA, tend to discourage waste minimization. Some examples include the
following:
• Source reduction sometimes requires the installation of new
machinery that can, under RCRA, be considered "treatment." This
in turn may require a plant to obtain a permit as a treatment, storage,
and disposal facility (TSDF).
• Commercial recycling facilities that wish to increase their operations
might be reluctant to do so if the expansion were to require a
revision of their NPDES water pollution permit to authorize a
change in the composition of their discharges or allow for larger
flows.
• The new definition of solid waste, promulgated by EPA to eliminate
loopholes in RCRA controls and inhibit unsafe (or "sham")
recycling, brings some additional wastes into the hazardous waste
system. This seems to be inhibiting some plants from sending these
wastes offsite for recycling, since many companies perceive that
manifested wastes present greater financial liability for offsite
activities out of their immediate control. In addition, out of anxiety
over potential financial liabilities, some companies not currently in
the hazardous waste system may be reluctant to undertake any waste
minimization program that would require them to accept manifested
hazardous waste (e.g., certain offsite recycling practices) or take
other measures that would bring them officially into the hazardous
waste management system.
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Executive Summary
Current Waste Minimization Requirements
At present, there are three formal statutory requirements relating to waste
minimization, all of them enacted as part of the 1984 amendments.
1. Section 3002(b) of HSWA requires generators to certify on their
waste manifests (mandated under Section 3002(a)) that they have in
place a program "to reduce the volume or quantity and toxicity of
such waste to the degree determined by the generator to be
economically practicable."
2. Section 3005(h) of HSWA requires the same certification in relation
to any new permit issued for treatment, storage, or disposal of
hazardous waste.
3. Section 3002(a)(6) of HSWA requires, as part of any generator's
biennial report to EPA, that the generator describe "the efforts
undertaken during the year to reduce the volume and toxicity of
waste generated" as well as "changes in volume and toxicity of
waste actually achieved during the year in question in comparison
with previous years, to the extent such information is available for
years prior to enactment of [HSWA]."
These requirements should increase the awareness of generators and facility owners
and operators of the importance of minimizing hazardous wastes, and might serve as the
basis for more specific and farther reaching requirements. However, the present
requirements are not restrictive; the generator determines whether any particular waste
minimization approach that might apply to his or her process is economically practicable.
Although the biennial reports should provide useful insight into what generators are
actually doing to reduce wastes, they are not likely to provide definitive information. The
reports due this year (1986) will be the first to include waste minimization requirements,
and the quality of information they contain is expected to vary widely. As yet, for
example, there is no formal definition of the meaning of the term "toxicity," or any
guidance on the way to measure waste volume. In addition, generators are not likely to
provide information that they consider confidential.
EPA is therefore conducting a study to determine how the waste minimization
statement on the biennial report can be modified to improve the quality of information being
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Executive Summary
reported. The Agency plans to provide uniform guidance directly to the States and to
generators on the content of these reports in time for their 1988 submission. Future
information provided in the report will then allow EPA to better identify trends in waste
minimization technologies applied by generating facilities.
Evaluation of Available Options for Waste Minimization
Congress specifically required the Agency to report on the desirability and
feasibility of establishing mandatory standards of performance for waste minimization or of
taking additional actions under RCRA to reduce the volume or quantity and toxicity of
hazardous waste and of establishing required management practices to achieve
minimization. It also requested any recommendations for legislative changes to implement
the national policy of waste minimization. This report details EPA's evaluation of the
following options to minimize hazardous wastes.
Standards of Performance
Mandatory standards of performance for minimizing wastes could take various
forms, but in all their variations they are markedly different in concept from the type of
performance standards typical of the air and water pollution control programs. In these
other programs, performance standards are end-of-pipe standards that allow flexibility to
modify processes or add control technologies. Performance standards for waste
minimization would depend substantially on internal modifications of industrial processes.
Such standards would mark a major departure from past practice and would require
statutory amendments. At present, mandatory performance standards are not authorized
under RCRA.
EPA has evaluated three variations of performance standards in this report:
1. Specific standards limiting the volume or toxicity of wastes,
2. Prohibition or restriction of specific waste streams, and
3. A phasedown permit system, wherein total waste generation levels
for one or more industries or waste streams are specified and then
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reduced ("phased down") over time. Under this option, trades
among firms for generation rights would be encouraged.
EPA believes that all these options raise significant implementation concerns and
should be adopted only after careful evaluation of emerging trends and patterns of waste
generation. It is important that the option selected be the most effective method to minimize
hazardous waste for a particular industry. All performance standard options would be
costly and time consuming to design and would, therefore, be infeasible to implement in
the next four to six years. If it becomes clear after implementation of the land disposal
restrictions program that there are specific residual hazardous waste problems that are not
being resolved through response to these requirements, then additional prescriptive action
may be appropriate. EPA might find that the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA),
especially Section (6)(a)(A), is a more appropriate method than RCRA regulations to
resolve residual hazardous waste problems.
- A comprehensive command-and-control performance standard program of the
traditional type would cost on the order to $5 to $7 million per standard to design and
implement, and would require staff commitments at least as high as the effluent guidelines
program for water or the new source performance standards program for air. At the
present time, however, there are hundreds of discrete industrial processes to examine, and
it is difficult to project without further information how many may require standards.
Under the most realistic circumstances, it would take at least ten years after Congressional
authorization to design and fully implement such a program.
Prohibition or restriction of specific wastes would presumably be simpler in
regulatory structure and more selectively applied than performance standards, but would
still require extensive research into processes and waste management techniques.
Furthermore, responsible use of prohibition authority often requires substantial analysis of
the feasibility of less severe measures and, therefore, can also be costly to evaluate.
A phasedown permit system would be somewhat different in concept and operation
from a command-and-control performance standard approach. Because it would not set
specific engineering standards for each industry, the burden on EPA for developing the
program would be considerably less than for a conventional standard-setting process.
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Incentives for trading among firms would be inherent in the system, since the number of
permits would be limited to less than the current level of waste generated. The eventual
value and distribution of permits would be set by the marketplace, with waste reductions
coming from those firms that could reduce most cost-effectively. These firms would be
able to sell any unused permits on the open market as "waste reduction credits." Moreover,
since EPA would phase down the amount of waste generation allowed, the permits would
increase in value over time, creating a continuous incentive to reduce waste further.
Phasedown permits would cost society far less than other performance standard
options for achieving a given level of waste reduction if there are sufficiently wide
variations in unit control costs among generators and if trades are actually made among
firms. They do, however, raise novel implementation problems. Two concerns are the
initial distribution of permits and the degree of trading to be allowed. However, these
issues may be resolvable, as demonstrated by EPA's recent program to phase down the
lead content of gasoline. A third concern is how to determine the rate of the phasedown
and the amount of hazardous waste allowed at the end of the phasedown period.
Under any of these options, EPA would consider exempting small quantity
generators from the requirements or would consider subjecting them to simplified and less
burdensome requirements. Because small quantity generators collectively account for only
a small fraction of the wastes generated annually,** subjecting them to stringent and
expensive regulations may not be cost-effective or provide additional protection of human
health and the environment.
Management Practices
Management practices, as defined in this report, are procedures or institutional
policies within a service or manufacturing operation that result in a reduction in hazardous
waste generation. They are a step beyond the directives established by performance
Small quantity generators regulated under RCRA are those who generate between 100 and 1,000
kilograms of hazardous waste per month. According to the National Small Quantity Hazardous
Generator Survey, conducted for the Office of Solid Waste in 1985, small quantity generators,
including those who generate less than 100 kilograms per month, collectively account for less than
one half of one percent of the total quantity of waste generated annually.
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standards and include requirements restricting particular disposal practices, requirements
for the handling of wastes as they are generated, and requirements for controlling the waste
generation system.
Three management practices are discussed below. The first would ban the
landfilling, treatment, or incineration of potentially recyclable wastes. The second would
require the segregation of wastes to enhance recycling potential. The third would require
mandatory waste audits.
Banning the landfilling, treatment, or incineration of potentially recyclable wastes
would likely be controversial and possibly inefficient. In addition, while it would be
possible to make sure that no proscribed waste is landfilled, treated, or incinerated, it
would be exceedingly difficult to ensure that all such waste is properly recycled instead,
thus making it difficult to enforce. Noncompliance (e.g., illegal dumping) would
potentially be substantial.
A second possibility would be a requirement for segregation of waste streams and
banning the mixing of waste streams that are potentially recyclable. This includes the
isolation of hazardous materials from nonhazardous materials or the isolation of liquid from
solid waste. The segregation of wastes does have the potential in selected instances to be
economically attractive, and could, in fact, save some firms significant sums of money by
reducing treatment and disposal costs, lowering expenses for the purchase of raw
materials, and/or generating a reclaimed product that can be marketed or sent to a waste
exchange. Waste stream segregation might, therefore, become economically attractive
without additional regulation. It is conceivable that new prohibitions on land disposal and
dramatically increased costs for all forms of disposal, coupled with substantial efforts to
increase industry awareness of recycling possibilities, could provide adequate information
and incentive for segregation without making such action a regulatory requirement.
Waste audits can be an effective means to identify opportunities for waste
minimization, making audits mandatory, however, could undermine their effectiveness.
While the direct costs of waste audits for industry are not extremely high (on average
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$10,000 to $20,000 per audit for an uncomplicated facility)^, requiring every waste
generator to conduct an audit could have some detrimental effects. If they were seen as a
Federal requirement rather than as a corporate initiative, plant personnel might tend to be
less than forthcoming and the results of such audits often might be discounted and
disregarded. A mandatory program might also require EPA to develop implementing
regulations to address who is qualified to conduct waste audits and how audits should be
conducted, and to monitor possible reporting requirements. Since it would be difficult to
require compliance with the recommendations of a waste audit, such efforts do not seem
justified.
It appears more desirable for EPA to promote voluntary waste audits on their own
merits as a useful waste management tool, such as through a technical assistance program
implemented through the States (see below). EPA and the States could develop programs
that would include State certification and listing of qualified waste minimization auditors,
targeted assistance programs for onsite audits, and development of model checklists and
protocols for conducting audits. In the context of a voluntary audit approach, such
programs should be less burdensome to develop and more flexible to implement than under
a mandatory regime; thus, it is suggested as an EPA initiative.
Legislative Amendments to HSWA
EPA currently interprets the certification requirement under HSWA Section 3002
(generator standards) and Section 3005 (permit standards) as prohibiting the development
of substantive requirements to generators on what constitutes appropriate waste
minimization. As the Senate Report on the certification process emphasizes, the intent of
the current requirement is merely to encourage generators to consider specifically the
desirability and feasibility of waste minimization; it does not require specific waste
minimization action.
The Agency believes that generators should continue to determine what their waste
minimization options are and, at this time, that EPA should not make process related
For smaller facilities, the costs could be substantially lower, perhaps under S5.000; however, for
large, complex facilities, the costs could be substantially higher.
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decisions to force waste minimization. However, EPA is further considering an option to
amend the current legislation to allow EPA to define acceptable waste minimization
practices. This authority could allow EPA to specify general practices that could or could
not be certified as waste minimization (e.g., those practices that result in adverse cross-
media pollution transfers). EPA is continuing to evaluate this change to the waste
minimization certification statement, and will provide Congress a further assessment of the
need to modify these requirements. Among possible options to consider include:
• Prohibit, where appropriate, certification of certain types of waste
management practices as waste minimization.
• Specify what may be certified as waste minimization.
Define necessary documentation for certifications that state that
waste minimization is not economically practicable.
As additional information becomes available, the Agency could use this discretionary
authority to focus on specific industries that continue to create potential risks to human
health and the environment.
While small quantity generators might be subject to such additional reporting
responsibilities under this option, EPA could consider subjecting them to less rigorous and
burdensome requirements than those affecting large quantity generators.
Other Options
A number of other waste minimization options have been identified in the course of
preparing this report. A full list of available options is found in the technical support
document for this report, Waste Minimization Issues and Options. Several of the options
listed there are not discussed here for various reasons: either they have been considered
already under other authority (such as the provisions for a waste-end tax now under
consideration as part of the CERCLA reauthorization), or they have been found, on further
review, to be unworkable as part of RCRA (e.g., enforcement bounties). Appendix B to
this report lists options that have not been evaluated or presented here and explains the
reasons for their exclusion.
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Two basic options for waste minimization that the Agency believes should
definitely be considered as part of a short- or long-term waste minimization strategy are
(1) technical assistance for waste minimization, implemented in cooperation with the
States, and (2) modifications to Federal procurement practices to avoid discriminating
against recycled commodities and, where appropriate, to support development of markets
in recycled commodities.
An active, aggressive, and sustained program for technical assistance appears to be
the strongest option available to promote waste minimization, especially in the near term.
Carried out in cooperation with the States, such a program could be aimed primarily at
small ^ and medium sized companies, which currently have the least access to information
on how to minimize their wastes. The program's purpose would be to encourage firms to
include waste minimization efforts in their hazardous waste management planning, to
provide access to technical information, and to encourage the development of markets for
recyclers and recycled materials. No new legislative authority would be required to launch
such a technical assistance effort, but adequate and sustained support by Congress would
be necessary over the next ten years if it were to achieve its potential.
RCRA already provides authorization for EPA to encourage revision of Federal
procurement practices to promote the use of recycled products. Section 6002 of RCRA
requires procuring agencies to amend Federal procurement practices to avoid unnecessary
discrimination against recycled products, and requires EPA to promulgate procurement
guidelines that actively promote the procurement of recycled products. This strategy may
help achieve substantial increases in the market share of recycled products, particularly
where the Federal government is a major consumer of a product. In such instances, a
Federal preference for a recycled product may make the product economically viable. EPA
should work with agencies that are in the best position to create such markets, including the
Department of Defense and the Department of Energy.
10 "Small" companies are not intended to include only Small Quantity Generators as defined under
RCRA. A technical assistance program would also be useful for small quantity generators, but the
degree of emphasis on this group would have to be carefully reviewed. While small quantity
generators do need (and often request) technical assistance, the available data suggest, as noted
earlier, that they contribute only a very minor fraction (about one-half of one percent) of hazardous
waste volume nationally.
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Recommendations
At this time, the Agency believes that generators should continue to determine
which waste minimization techniques are economically practicable and that EPA should not
specify requirements for waste minimization.
If, after implementation of the other pertinent provisions of the HSWA, the Agency
decides that standards of performance or required management practices are needed to
protect human health and the environment, it will then request the necessary additional
authority from Congress. EPA proposes to report to Congress on this issue in December
1990, the earliest date at which it believes a recommendation on the need for a mandatory
waste minimization program could be made.
EPA does plan to expand its waste minimization efforts as discussed below in the
context of EPA's proposed three-point waste minimization strategy.
The elements of this strategy are:
1. Information Gathering: Detailed data on .industry's response to the
land disposal restrictions program and other existing waste
minimization incentives must be gathered in order to make a final
determination on the desirability and feasibility of performance
standards and required management practices.
2. A Core Waste Minimization Program: During the interval when the
new provisions of HSWA are taking effect, EPA will launch a
strong technical assistance and information transfer program through
the States to promote voluntary waste minimization in industry,
government, and the non-profit sectors of the economy. It will also
work with Federal agencies to encourage procurement practices that
promote the use of recycled and reclaimed materials.
3. Longer Term Options: Based on an analysis of the new data
gathered under (1) above, performance standards and other
mandatory requirements can be imposed, if necessary, once the
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Executive Summary
HSWA amendments have taken full effect and their impacts on
waste generation have been assessed.
Information Gathering
Agency actions to encourage waste minimization, whether through voluntary means
or through future regulatory action, must be based on a full understanding of the present
state of hazardous waste generation and management and of how that system is evolving
under the many pressures to which it is now being subjected. The general patterns and
trends of hazardous waste management systems are becoming clearer, but past trends may
not persist through the next four to six years as HSWA's new provisions take effect, and
as industry seeks to control the potential financial liabilities associated with hazardous
waste management
Baseline and trends data: The best data available to the Agency on the amount and
content of hazardous wastes were developed by surveys conducted in 1981 and 1983.
These data are rapidly becoming out of date and are known to be of uneven quality because
of reporting errors and the small and variable sample sizes from which information was
extrapolated. They must be supplemented with new data documenting the changes that
have already begun and will continue to progress over the next few years.
In order to make a final determination on the desirability and feasibility of
mandatory waste minimization actions, the Agency must be able to document unresolved
environmental problems for which such a new regulatory program would be the
appropriate response. Examples might be waste streams for which treatment and disposal
capacity remains inadequate even after the land disposal restrictions have been in place for a
year or more, or a future EPA determination that a particular type of hazardous waste
treatment method does not, in practice, adequately protect human health and the
environment.
The types of data needed include detailed baseline information on the volumes and
toxicity of wastes generated, trends data on source reduction and recycling, trends data on
treatment and disposal capacity, and analyses of the human health and environmental
impacts of treatment and disposal practices. EPA expects that existing statutory authority is
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Executive Summary
sufficient to gather this additional data. One potential source will the biennial reports,
which will be upgraded to improve the consistency and coverage of the information
submitted. Other sources may include a new generator survey or the 1986 TSD survey
currently being undertaken, information developed by EPA programs outside of the Office
of Solid Waste (such as under TSCA), and the reporting requirements that may be enacted
under amendments to CERCLA.
Data to support technical assistance and information transfer: Much of the same
data can be used to set priorities for technical assistance programs to promote source
reduction and recycling programs, targeting them where they will be most successful in
reducing threats to human health and the environment. However, in-house research and
cooperation with States and industry trade associations will provide more detailed
information on the cost and effectiveness of specific waste minimization techniques for the
targeted industries. This information gathering program will enable EPA to develop an
accurate profile of waste management trends and practices and selectively develop
performance standards or other requirements as needed.
A Core Waste Minimization Program
As this report has already emphasized, it is neither desirable nor practical to
research, promulgate, and enforce a major regulatory program mandating specific waste
minimization standards over the next four to six years. During this time, industry will be
making technical and financial commitments to respond to the changing requirements and
incentives of the hazardous waste management system. Once made, these commitments
will be difficult to change. It is therefore both practical and highly desirable to conduct
outreach programs to support and enhance the use of waste minimization as part of an
overall waste management strategy and to reduce threats to human health and the
environment It should be noted that, in the event that mandatory controls are needed in the
near term to control volume or toxicity of wastes generated by particular industries, EPA
would use the authority that currently exists under Section 6 of the Toxic Substances
Control Act.
Elements of this initial waste minimization program will include:
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Executive Summary
• Development and publication of an Agency policy statement on
waste minimization including non-binding guidance to generators
defining what constitutes waste minimization under the reporting
and certification requirements of HSWA. To the extent possible,
this guidance will be specific to particular industrial sectors and
processes.
• Expansion of EPA's role in providing for technical and information
assistance to generators, including small generators. Because the
States have more direct contact with the generators and hence have
more awareness of generators' needs and problems, EPA's primary
role should be to support and encourage the States in the
development of their programs. An appropriate EPA-sponsored
technical assistance effort includes the following elements:
— Assistance for States to initiate and develop programs for
providing direct assistance to generators, especially small and
medium sized generators.
— Technical support of research and development and economic
feasibility studies that might serve an entire region or have
regional application.
— Development of a computerized information system on waste
minimization, accessible by the States.
• Encouraging voluntary waste minimization concepts within the
review of new chemicals mandated under TSCA Section 5. EPA
anticipates the preparation of a New Chemicals Information Bulletin
advising submitters that waste minimization will be considered
during the review of the relative risks of the new chemical
substances and their existing substitutes.
The Agency should also establish a formal process of coordination with the States
to ensure a continuing and responsive technical assistance and outreach effort over the
longer term.
In addition, EPA will continue to examine specific elements of the "core" waste
minimization program and make recommendations for legislative changes to the existing
waste minimization requirements, if needed, as part of the next RCRA reauthorization.
Among the possible options to consider would be modifications to the existing certification
for generators and TSDFs, including:
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Executive Summary
• Prohibiting, where appropriate, certification of certain types of
waste management practices as waste minimization.
• Providing, where appropriate, formal guidance as to what may be
certified as waste minimization. Such guidance could apply
generally or to specific industrial sectors. (Flexibility for appeals
and exceptions must also be provided.)
• Requiring generators who have not undertaken any of the approved
waste minimization activities, but who certify that there is no
economically practicable alternative to their present waste reduction
and management practices, to provide a written explanation of such
certification.
Longer Term Options
Only after the land disposal restrictions and other principal provisions of the HSWA
go into effect, and after EPA has developed the needed additional data on hazardous waste
generation and management, will it be possible to determine whether standards of
performance (including phasedown permits) or required management practices (such as
waste audits) are necessary to achieve additional reductions in the volume or toxicity of
wastes. The Agency therefore recommends that consideration of new mandatory programs
be deferred until after such data can be gathered and analyzed, and proposes to report back
to Congress on the desirability and feasibility of prescriptive approaches two years after the
first of the land disposal restrictions has been fully implemented. Excluding the possibility
of case-by-case extensions, the first of the land disposal restrictions will be fully
implemented in November of 1988; EPA will, therefore, make its next formal report on this
subject in December of 1990.
Conclusion
EPA still has much to learn about waste minimization and recognizes that the
cooperation of private and public waste generators will be invaluable as it moves toward the
development of sound long term policy. It also believes, however, that the incentives and
trends within the hazardous waste management system are unmistakable, and that the
program presented here comprises the most positive and constructive steps that can be
taken at this time. Aggressive action in favor of waste minimization is clearly needed, but a
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Executive Summary
major new regulatory program—at least for the present—does not seem desirable or
feasible.
Incentives for waste minimization are already strong, so EPA must capitalize on
them. Most lacking is access by generators to the information that will demonstrate the
economic benefits of waste minimization to industry, overcome logistical problems, and
help develop creative new approaches. This can be provided by a strong technical
assistance and information transfer effort, which can achieve through voluntary means
what would be inefficient and possibly counterproductive to attempt through regulation.
Unfortunately, non-regulatory programs have often failed at EPA for lack of statutory or
regulatory deadlines and institutional advocacy. For such a program to work, it must be
given strong organizational support within the Agency.
EPA is willing to make this commitment, and seeks support from Congress to
ensure its success.
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Report to Congress on Minimization of Hazardous Waste
INTRODUCTION
This Report to Congress is submitted in response to the requirements of Section
8002(r) of the Solid Waste Disposal Act, as amended by the Hazardous and Solid Waste
Amendments (HSWA) of 1984. Under this Section, the Administrator of the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is required to submit a Report to Congress by
October 1, 1986, to recommend any legislative changes or regulatory measures that he
considers feasible and desirable to implement HSWA's policy with respect to the
minimization of hazardous waste, which states:
The Congress hereby declares it to be the national policy of the United
States that, wherever feasible, the generation of hazardous waste is to be
reduced or eliminated as expeditiously as possible. Waste that is
nevertheless generated should be treated, stored, or disposed of so as to
minimize the present and future threat to human health and the environment.
Under Section 1003, Congress specifically mentions process substitution, materials
recovery, properly conducted recycling and reuse, and treatment as waste minimization
methods to be encouraged.
Section 8002(r) requires the Administrator to evaluate specifically the feasibility and
desirability of:
1. Establishing standards of performance or of taking other additional
actions under RCRA to require generators of hazardous waste to
reduce the volume or quantity and toxicity of the hazardous waste
they generate, and
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Introduction
2. Establishing, with respect to hazardous waste, required management
practices or other requirements to ensure such wastes are managed
in ways that minimize present and future risks to human health and
the environment
Section 8002 requires the Administrator to evaluate waste minimization options in
the context of the additional requirements applicable to persons who generate, transport, or
manage hazardous waste under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).
Principal areas of regulation under RCRA include (1) transport manifests, (2) biennial
reports, and (3) the requirements for onsite treatment, storage, and disposal of hazardous
wastes. The feasibility and desirability of making further changes to these requirements
will also be addressed in this report.
Chapter One of this report provides background on the subject of waste
minimization and on the various factors that are critical to its understanding and
implementation. It reflects the Agency's thinking about why waste minimization is
important, where various types of new initiatives might be undertaken, and what
information remains to be collected and evaluated before the details of a long term strategy
can be designed.
Chapter Two presents the data and information pertinent to developing a national
waste minimization strategy. It begins with a profile of hazardous waste generation,
highlighting the aspects of the data that are most pertinent to waste minimization. It
continues with a discussion of the current status of waste minimization in industry and the
States—how it is being done and what the incentives and barriers appear to be. It
discusses current EPA activities in relation to waste minimization and in relation to other
policies such as consideration of cross-media interactions. The chapter concludes with a
discussion of current activities at EPA to encourage or conduct research into waste
minimization.
Chapter Three discusses the options available to encourage more waste
minimization through action at the Federal level. It begins with a presentation of the criteria
by which the Agency has reviewed the desirability and feasibility of the identified options.
The chapter then groups the available options into four categories, beginning with the three
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Introduction
that Congress has directed EPA to address. The categories are: (1) performance standards,
(2) legislative actions other than use of performance standards, (3) management options,
and (4) options that do not fall into the first three categories.
Chapter Four presents the recommendations of the Agency. It discusses how
various options from various categories of activities could fit together over the long term to
form a comprehensive waste minimization strategy. It also describes the types of data that
must be gathered before the long-term elements of a waste minimization program can be
implemented.
Various appendices are attached to this report, providing more detail on the specific
issues and options addressed in the main text. Appendix A provides a fuller discussion of
the principal waste minimization options. Appendix B discusses options that had
tentatively been developed as pan of the technical support document for this Report to
Congress, but which have been dropped for various reasons from further consideration.
Appendix C reviews the history of OSW waste minimization activities. Appendix D
discusses scoring methods used to estimate the toxicity of various hazardous waste streams
as pan of the background research for this document. Appendix E contains copies of all
official correspondence signed either by the EPA Administrator or by the Assistant
Administrator for Solid Waste and Emergency Response on the subject of waste
minimization.
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Chapter One
BACKGROUND
In 1976, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a policy
statement outlining its preferred hazardous waste management strategy.1 That strategy,
which favors source reduction and recycling over treatment and land disposal, has
remained intact over the past decade despite comprehensive statutory amendments and
substantial expansion of the hazardous waste program. The following, in descending order
of preference, are the basic elements of this strategy.
1. Waste Reduction: Reduce the amount of waste at the source,
through changes in industrial processes.
2. Waste Separation and Concentration: Isolate wastes from mixtures
in which they occur.
3. Waste Exchange: Transfer wastes through clearinghouses so that
they can be recycled in industrial processes.
4. Energy/Material Recovery: Reuse and recycle wastes for the
original or some other purpose, such as for materials recovery or
energy production.
5. Incineration/Treatment: Destroy, detoxify, and neutralize wastes
into less harmful substances.
41 FR 35050, August 18, 1976
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Background
6. Secure Land Disposal: Deposit wastes on land using volume
reduction, encapsulation, leachate containment, monitoring, and
controlled air and surface/subsurface water releases.
Waste minimization, as defined in this report, includes the first four categories of
this hierarchy and can be seen as an essential element of Federal hazardous waste
management policy. Congress, through the HSWA, has directly instituted several waste
minimization actions, such as requiring hazardous waste generators to certify on their
manifests that they have active waste minimization programs in place. Most important in
the larger policy context, HSWA puts even further emphasis on waste minimization by
making it the national policy with respect to hazardous waste management, similar in scope
to the zero-discharge policy of the Clean Water Act or the non-degradation policy of the
Clean Air Act.
This report responds to the HSWA directive to examine the desirability and
feasibility of expanding the Federal role in waste minimization through the use of statutory
changes, regulatory requirements, or other program initiatives. It interprets the broad
mandate established under HSWA and describes how that mandate can best be carried out
as an affirmative national program within the overall waste management strategy.
The following definitions are crucial to the discussions and recommendations made
in this report:
• Waste minimization means the reduction, to the extent feasible, of
hazardous waste that is generated or subsequently treated, stored, or
disposed of. It includes any source reduction or recycling activity
undertaken by a generator that results in either (1) the reduction of
total volume or quantity of hazardous waste or (2) the reduction of
toxicity of hazardous waste, or both, so long as such reduction is
consistent with the goal of minimizing present and future threats to
human health and the environment.
• Source reduction refers to the reduction or elimination of waste
generation at the source, usually within a process. This is the type
of waste minimization that most closely corresponds to the concept
of "waste avoidance." Source reduction measures can include some
types of treatment processes, but they also include process
modifications, feedstock substitutions or improvements in feedstock
purity, various housekeeping and management practices, increases
in the efficiency of machinery, and even recycling within a process.
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Background
As used here, source reduction implies any action that reduces the
amount of waste exiting from a process.
• Recycling refers to the use or reuse of a waste as an effective
substitute for a commercial product, or as an ingredient or feedstock
in an industrial process. It also refers to the reclamation of useful
constituent fractions within a waste material or removal of
contaminants from a waste to allow it to be reused.2 As used here,
recycling implies use, reuse, or reclamation of a waste after it is
generated by a particular process. It, too, can involve various types
of treatment to facilitate the recycling process.
Table 1-1 lists these and other formal definitions of various terms used throughout this
report.
The Purpose of Waste Minimization
The focus of the RCRA program over the past ten years has primarily been on
correcting the effects of years of mismanagement of hazardous wastes by bringing
treatment, storage, and disposal facilities into compliance with national standards that are
protective of human health and the environment. This policy has continued with the
passage of HSWA, but the program's central emphasis is now shifting away from
reforming land disposal practices and toward establishing a broad national reliance on
waste treatment. Because of its potential for contamination of other environmental media
(e.g., ground water), land disposal—even under strict control—is recognized as the least
desirable method of managing hazardous wastes.
The move toward treatment is a major step forward, but is not a complete answer.
Reforms in land disposal practices and installation of new hazardous waste treatment
capacity are effective responses to managing this country's hazardous waste, but they do
not attack the problem's underlying cause. Preventing the generation of a waste is the only
way to eliminate risk rather than reduce it. In conjunction with a program that drives
The definitions of "recycling," "use or reuse," and "reclamation" appear in 40 CFR 261,
as amended by 50 FR 663, January 4, 1985.
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Background
Table 1-1
Working Definitions of Waste Minimization and Related Terms
Waste minimization:
Reduction of total
volume or quantity:
Reduction in toxicity:
Source reduction:
Source control:
Product substitution:
Recycled:
Used or reused:
The reduction, to the extent feasible, of hazardous waste that is generated or
subsequently treated, stored, or disposed of. It includes any source
reduction or recycling activity undertaken by a generator that results in
either (1) the reduction of total volume or quantity of hazardous waste or
(2) the reduction of toxicity of hazardous waste, or both, so long as such
reduction is consistent with the goal of minimizing present and future
threats to human health and the environment
The reduction in the total amount of hazardous waste generated, treated,
stored, or disposed of, as defined by volume, weight, mass or some other
appropriate measure.
The reduction or elimination of the toxicity of a hazardous waste by (1)
altering the toxic constituent(s) of the waste to less toxic or nontoxic
form(s) or (2) lowering the concentration of toxic constituent(s) in the
waste by means other than dilutioa
Any activity that reduces or eliminates the generation of a hazardous waste
within a process.
Any activity classifiable under source reduction with the notable exception
of product substitution.
The replacement of any product intended for an intermediate or final use
with another product intended and suitable for the same intermediate or final
use.
A material is "recycled" if it is used, reused, or reclaimed (40 CFR
Reclaimed:
A material is "used or reused" if it is either (1) employed as an ingredient
(including its use as an intermediate) in an industrial process to make a
product; however, a material will not satisfy this condition if distinct
components of the material are recovered as separate end products (as when
metals are recovered from metal-containing secondary materials) or (2)
employed in a particular function or application as an effective substitute
for a commercial product (40 CFR 261.1(c)(5)).
A material is "reclaimed" if it is processed to recover a usable product or if
it is regenerated. Examples are recovery of lead values for spent batteries
and regeneration of spent solvents (40 CFR 261.1(c)(4)).
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Background
mandatory hazardous waste treatment to the limits of available technology, there will be a
continuing need for waste minimization as a central element in hazardous waste policy.
There are at least three general areas where waste minimization can play a key role:
• Protecting human health and the environment: Current
environmental control programs are well designed to protect health
and the environment, but they do so only to the limits of current
knowledge. The existing programs set their priorities on only a
subset of the substances of possible importance. Although there are
some 60,000 chemicals in commerce, the Clean Air Act currently
concentrates on fewer than 40 toxic pollutants, the Clean Water Act
on 129, and RCRA on approximately 500. Chemicals of concern
are recognized far more rapidly than the regulatory process can
accommodate them.
In addition, none of EPA's environmental programs can fully
eliminate all the risks that they attempt to control.
— Treatment technologies are never 100 percent efficient, and land
disposal, with all its known problems, will continue to be
necessary for the foreseeable future.
— Unintentional transfers of pollution among environmental media
remain a complex and imperfectly understood phenomenon and
create difficult problems for the environmental programs to
identify and resolve.
— Compliance with regulations under any and all of the
environmental programs will never be perfect, even with the
most stringent enforcement programs; so violations—deliberate
and accidental—will continue to be a significant and largely
undocumented source of health and environmental risk.
Alleviating shortages of treatment and disposal capacity: Over the
next several years, HSWA mandates a dramatic phasedown in the
disposal of all forms of hazardous waste in and on the land. Wastes
that are still generated will be treated with the best available
technology. This will severely strain existing national capacity for
incineration, waste stabilization, and the wide range of other
chemical, physical, biological, and thermal treatment technologies.
Capacity may remain scarce even with high demand because of the
difficulty of siting new hazardous waste management facilities. In
addition, land disposal will still be needed to dispose of those
wastes for the residues of treatment.
9
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Background
• Overcoming market inefficiencies: Although existing incentives for
waste minimization are strong, both source reduction and recycling
ultimately depend on technical and management information. This
information is often difficult and expensive to obtain. While all
industries seek to improve product yield from resource inputs, not
all industries have access to the kind of engineering information that
could allow them to minimize waste economically, and many
generators interested in recycling wastes do not know where or how
they can safely do so.
Waste minimization helps protect human health and the environment because it
reduces the total amount of waste that is generated and managed, including those
substances whose risks may not be currently recognized or adequately appreciated.
Preventing the generation of wastes or reducing the use of potentially harmful substances in
manufacturing processes also helps to ensure worker safety. Finally, waste minimization
is a constructive approach to avoiding the risks of breakdowns in the waste management
system—wastes not generated cannot be illegally disposed or emitted by faulty or
inefficient equipment
On the other hand, waste minimization does not automatically avoid problems
associated with cross-media pollution shifts. To achieve its purpose, waste minimization,
like other pollution control measures, must look comprehensively across all environmental
media; reductions in hazardous waste must not be made at the expense of increases in air or
water pollution. This is an issue of paramount importance to the Agency and Congress.3
Programs that merely shift pollution from one place to another can lead to net increases in
health and environmental damage; they may also be economically counterproductive, since
corrective action measures may have to be taken in the future. Waste minimization
programs must therefore be carefully designed to avoid cross-media transfers and to protect
human health and the environment in the comprehensive sense. The need to design a waste
minimization program that addresses both of these goals provides a framework for
integrating the objectives of all environmental programs. Figure 1-1 provides some
One of the Congressional objectives with respect to hazardous waste, as stated in Section
1003(a)(5) of RCRA, is that "hazardous waste be properly managed in the first instance,
thereby reducing the need for corrective action at a future date."
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Background
perspective on the complexity of the pollution management system under various Federal
statutes.
In addition to its intrinsic health and environmental benefits, waste minimization can
be viewed as a long-term approach for relieving shortages of treatment, storage, and
disposal capacity. The capacity to accept wastes diverted from land disposal will be
especially limited over the next few years while new facilities are under construction.4
Furthermore, land disposal will continue to be required in the foreseeable future, even if
wastes disposed of on land are detoxified first. Since land disposal needs are cumulative,
capacity will always be a problem. Finally, all forms of waste management—treatment or
land disposal—must make provisions for industrial growth. By reducing per unit product
generation rates, waste minimization can provide at least a partial answer to all these
problems.
Finally, many of the waste minimization options under consideration in this report
are aimed primarily at helping generators gain access to the information they need and often
request. An expansion of Federal involvement in this aspect of waste minimization could
go far toward increasing the efficiency and pace of industry's natural inclination to reduce
waste generation.
Methods of Waste Minimization
RCRA wastes include a wide array of pollutants and waste streams not otherwise
controlled by Federal environmental laws. They include listed wastes, which are
specifically identified in the regulations as generic types or in relation to particular industrial
processes (examples include spent solvents used in degreasing or still bottoms from
distillation processes), as well as characteristic wastes, which are defined in terms of their
inherent chemical and physical properties (toxicity, ignitability, reactivity, acute
hazardousness, or corrosivity).
This process may be slow, since public opposition makes new hazardous waste facilities
extremely difficult to site.
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MUNICIPAL WASTEWATER
(12,000)
OTHER INDUSTRIAL
DISCHARGERS
Dlracl Dladurg* of
WuMiUr 1 So4l<
W»»l* It.511)
lnok*cl DlKliHg* Ou.nUly (2M)
•Sflul QuuiUry <0t>
DISPOSAL
FIGURES INDICATE VOLUMES
IN MILLION METRIC WET TONS
FIGURE 1-1 SCHEMATIC DIAGRAM OF THE NATIONAL WASTE SYSTEM
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Background
In the broad context, HSWA recognizes three options for minimizing
wastes—treatment, source reduction, and recycling. Whichever method is used, the end
result must be a reduction in the volume, quantity, or toxicity of wastes generated and sent
to land disposal. Policies to establish treatment requirements for hazardous wastes are
already firmly established so, for the purposes of this report, we focus primarily on source
reduction and recycling, which together make up the first four elements of EPA's
hazardous waste management hierarchy. These are the areas where national policy is still
evolving and where findings of the desirability and feasibility of specific options still need
to be made.
Section 1003, which establishes the general national policy in favor of waste
minimization, refers to the need to reduce the "volume or quantity and toxicity" of
hazardous wastes, so as to minimize the "present and future threat to human health and the
environment."^ As used in this report, a reduction of total volume or quantity is taken to
mean a reduction in the total amount of hazardous waste generated, treated, stored, or
disposed of, as defined by volume, weight, mass, or some other appropriate measure.
Reduction in toxicity implies a reduction or elimination of the toxicity of a hazardous waste
by (1) altering the toxic constituents of a waste to less toxic or nontoxic forms or (2)
lowering the concentration of toxic constituent(s) in the waste by means other than dilution.
Most waste streams are a mixture of hazardous and nonhazardous constituents,
such as water, dirt, or nontoxic oils. This suggests that there is often an inverse correlation
between toxicity and volume: all things being equal, as the volume of nonhazardous
materials in a waste stream decreases (i.e., as a stream becomes less dilute), toxicity tends
to increase. By calling for simultaneous reductions in both volume and toxicity, Congress
expressed a clear desire to avoid defining dewatering and other processes which merely
concentrate wastes as being primary methods of waste minimization.
EPA supports this Congressional concern, but also believes that Congress did not
intend entirely to disqualify volume reduction by itself (with no change in toxicity) as a
waste minimization technique. For example, EPA considers it beneficial if a firm can
HSWA Section 1003(b).
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Background
change its processes to produce less waste per unit product, even if the composition of the
waste does not change. EPA also believes that waste concentration may occasionally be a
useful approach to waste minimization, such as in relation to ameliorating shortages of land
disposal or treatment capacity, or in preparing materials for recycling. The key concept is
that waste minimization must enhance protection of human health and the environment.
Thus, because both volume and toxicity of wastes are involved, measuring the
effectiveness of waste minimization will be complex. First, waste minimization measures
are likely to be process and industry-specific, implying that different measurement
techniques might be needed in different contexts. Second, any mandatory requirements for
reducing the volume or toxicity of generated waste should, ideally, relate directly to
expected reductions in risk to human health and the environment The measurement of risk
reduction can be a very difficult task. EPA has, however, developed data and
methodologies that can evaluate the risks of many types of waste streams, as well as the
risk reductions associated with waste management practices. These evaluations will
continue to improve and to provide valuable information as a tool in regulatory
decision-making. The Agency would therefore use such assessments to help establish
priorities among or within potential regulatory requirements that might be necessary to
reduce waste generation further, and to help measure progress in waste minimization itself.
Waste minimization programs should ideally be designed with a view to ultimate
protection of environmental quality and human health. In some cases, for example, it
might make sense to concentrate wastes—even at the expense of increasing toxicity—if this
volume reduction would make recycling more practical and economically attractive. In
other cases, it might be desirable to increase waste volume if this would permit substantial
reductions in toxicity or would aid in treatment.6
This particular trade-off is an accepted reality within the waste treatment program.
Virtually all the technologies for immobilizing wastes increase waste volume
substantially because they mix wastes with large amounts of fixing materials like cement
or lime.
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Background
Incentives and Disincentives for Waste Minimization
Reduction of waste has long been a goal of EPA. This is, in fact, the third report to
Congress on the general subject, the other two having been submitted in 1973 and 1974
regarding the reduction of nonhazardous "post-consumer" wastes such as glass, paper,
tires, and obsolete automobiles. The existing incentives and disincentives for reducing
hazardous and other industrial process wastes, however, are quite different from those
affecting post-consumer wastes. Furthermore, the regulatory and economic environment
within which wastes are managed has changed dramatically since 1974. The following
pages describe current incentives and disincentives to waste minimization.
Incentives for Waste Minimization
Strong incentives already exist to promote waste minimization in the private sector,
including (1) dramatic increases in the price of all forms of hazardous waste management,
partially caused by Federal and State standards, (2) difficulties in siting hazardous waste
management capacity, (3) permitting burdens and corrective action requirements,
(4) financial liability of hazardous waste generators, (5) sharp increases in the cost of
commercial liability insurance, coupled with a steep dropoff in its availability, and (6)
public perception of industry's responsibilities to reduce the generation of waste. There are
also countervailing disincentives.
Increases in the costs of hazardous waste management: EPA and State regulations
have been the primary cause of increased costs in treatment, storage and disposal of
hazardous wastes, especially in relation to landfills and surface impoundments. The
HSWA has accelerated an already well-established trend toward higher costs for virtually
all forms of hazardous waste management. Regulations upgrading design and construction
standards for RCRA-approved landfills have already pushed the price of land disposal from
as little as $10 to $15 per metric ton (in the early 1970s) to $240 per metric ton (for
disposal in a RCRA-approved double-lined landfill). As opportunities for legal use of land
disposal disappear, companies will turn to such technologies as incineration, which costs
from $500 to $1200 per metric ton for organic wastes. Anticipated shortages in
incineration capacity can be expected to drive its costs higher over the short term, and other
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Background
treatment technologies are often considerably more expensive. These rising costs of land
disposal and alternative technologies make waste minimization alternatives increasingly
cost-effective.
The centerpiece of this policy is the land disposal restriction program, enacted to
minimize the nation's reliance on land disposal—currently the primary method of managing
hazardous wastes. This program is on a short and strict schedule: HSWA sets a series of
dates banning continued placement of hazardous wastes in or on the land. These bans will
be enacted in stages, beginning with solvents and dioxins on November 8, 1986, and
continuing with liquid wastes containing high concentrations of hazardous metals (the
"California List") on July 7, 1987. The remaining wastes will be banned by thirds, with
successive "tiers" being banned in August 1988, June 1989, and May 1990.7
Although the effects of these regulations cannot be clearly predicted, the restrictions
are expected to have a profound impact on waste management practices of generators as
well as of treatment, storage, and disposal facilities. Disposal restrictions will limit the
number of wastes that can be disposed of on land and will likely cause short-run capacity
problems for particular generators while increasing the cost of waste management for all
generators.
The extent to which generators will adopt waste minimization techniques to avoid
the costs and difficulties of treatment and disposal will depend on the costs of alternatives
that will satisfy the requirements of the land disposal restriction program, their access to
capital, and their ability to change production processes to minimize the generation of
regulated waste streams. A generator may not select a more efficient treatment technology,
even though it exists, if the costs are too high. Facilities having adequate access to capital
may be better able to cope with land disposal restriction impediments through research and
development of innovative treatment technologies or further investment in existing
treatments. But it is doubtful that, in the short run, many generators will be able to alter the
Waste streams within each tier were selected by ranking according to their volume and
"inherent lexicological properties of hazardous constituents in the waste." For a ranking
of the waste streams that will be prohibited see: Documentation for the Development of
Toxicity and Volume Scores for the Purpose of Scheduling Hazardous Wastes * USEPA,
Office of Solid Waste, March 28, 1985.
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Background
character or volume of their waste streams significantly. While some generators might be
able to reduce the concentration levels of the hazardous waste constituents themselves, and
thereby avoid the earlier restriction deadline (e.g., the July 7,1987, ban on California listed
wastes), this strategy would only be effective on a temporary basis. The three final land
disposal restrictions would eventually ban their wastes altogether unless adequate
pretreatment were to be applied.
Of immediate concern to waste minimization policy is the severity of short-term
impacts on those generators whose wastes are to be restricted. The earliest dates for land
disposal restrictions cover solvents and dioxins. We might expect to see the first wave of
innovative treatment in industries that generate the banned wastes. These include the
paints, varnishes, lacquers, enamels, and allied products and pesticides sectors, where
solvents are a major product constituent and are used to clean machinery after batch process
manufacturing. The laundry, cleaning, and garment services sector also uses solvents in
cleaning clothes. Because the industry has managed to develop a recycling process in
which many firms participate, the restrictions are not expected to have a large impact.
Sectors which have relied on land disposal for much of their solvent wastes will have to
implement other means of waste treatment. Treatment technologies already exist for
solvents; they include incineration, biological degradation and activated carbon adsorption.8
Though some of these treatments, such as incineration, are very efficient at solvent
waste reduction, the costs have been prohibitive. Shifts in the demand for these treatments
may now make them more economical. However, even if they do, temporary capacity
shortfalls may make it difficult to handle the quantity of waste expected to be shipped to
these treatment facilities.9 In addition, facilities may use other treatments that are less
expensive (e.g., air stripping), and which may merely shift solvents to another medium.
Thus, such treatment may not ultimately reduce the hazards caused by the wastes.
Analysis of Treatment and Recycling Technologies for Solvents and Determination of
Best Demonstrated Technologies, (Revised), USEPA, Office of Solid Waste, February
1986. y
This is expected to continue as land restrictions increase the number of industries seeking
other waste treatment methods. See: Survey of Selected Firms in the Commercial
Hazardous Waste Management Industry: 1984 Update, USEPA, Office of Policy
Analysis, September 30, 1985.
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Background
The July 7, 1987, deadline marks the second land disposal restriction date. The
restrictions apply to the California List wastes, including those with high concentrations of
metals, acids, corrosives, cyanides, and halogenated organic compounds. It is difficult to
identify all the industries that will be affected by the California List disposal restrictions,
since criteria for inclusion are based on waste stream concentration. Thus, some streams
may not be restricted from land disposal at this time if the designated constituents do not
exist in high enough concentrations. There are many generators of halogenated organic
compounds, but it is unclear which ones will have waste stream loadings exceeding the
1,000 kg per month statutory ban level. In addition, other affected generators will
probably include those having waste streams with particularly high concentrations of
metals, such as the electroplating sector, the secondary smelting and refining industry, and
the chemical manufacturing industry. Metal finishing firms generating concentrated acid
wastes will probably also be affected.
Banning of the tiered waste streams, which include off-specification chemicals,
residues from spills, and other relatively low-volume but often highly toxic materials,
begins in August 1988. Waste stream restriction is based on descending order of toxicity
and volume. An estimated 142 waste streams fall under the first tier, for a total annual
volume in excess of 8.7 million metric tons. The higher toxicity of these streams will also
increase the difficulty of treatment. Treatment capacity for managing these wastes is
expected to become more limited as each successive tier is banned.
The limited market for treatment could have a long-term positive effect on waste
minimization, because alternative treatment options may become increasingly costly. First,
cost of waste treatment per unit volume will increase dramatically. RCRA regulations for
land disposal facilities have more than doubled the cost of land disposal from under $100
per metric ton to about $240 per metric ton. Costs of alternatives like incineration and
chemical treatment range even higher. Although these higher costs have already caused
some generators to seek other methods for treatment and disposal, the actual land disposal
restrictions on waste streams will probably cause even more impact on alternative treatment
methods.
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Background
The HSWA amendments may also stimulate growth markets in most of the
available treatment and disposal services, including incineration; chemical, physical, and
biological treatment; and stabilization The question remains, however, as to how quickly
and how much these services will add to the total national treatment capacity. Generally,
assuming that market pressure will affect both generator and commercial treatment facilities
equally (the former because their wastes are restricted and the latter because of the
incentives to capture a larger market share), there could be a significant reduction in waste.
The expanded definition of small quantity generators (SQGs) includes a group of
facilities that may be less able to comply with the restrictions than their larger counterparts.
Rather than face the high costs of compliance with the more stringent disposal restrictions,
some small quantity generators may illegally dump their wastes. Although the cumulative
volume generated by this group is small, illegal dumping could be disproportionately
dangerous since certain wastes generated by SQGs may include such highly toxic materials
as pesticide residues and electroplating sludges.
There are, therefore, many uncertainties over how industry and other hazardous
waste generators will react to the new system. It is clear that capacity for the kinds of
treatment mandated under these rules is not currently sufficient to handle the volume of
wastes that will be forthcoming, but it is not clear how quickly the marketplace can install
more capacity to respond to the land disposal restrictions, and, when it does, what the cost
will be. EPA has already identified shortages of treatment capacity for solvent and dioxin
wastes in its proposed regulations.10 For solvents, it estimates a shortfall of more than 73
million gallons per year for wastewater treatment capacity, and of 6.7 million gallons per
year for incineration; for dioxins, it estimates that there are approximately 1.35 million
metric tons of waste, with no approved treatment capacity available. It is also difficult to
predict the possible increase in illegal disposal and nonreporting, although at least some
increase is expected.
Most significant for the objectives of this report, the Agency does not know to what
extent, and in what industrial sectors, further source reduction and recycling will occur
10
51 FR 1729, January 14, 1986
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Background
voluntarily. Until further information becomes available, it will not be possible for the
Agency to decide where there may be a need for further reductions in per-unit waste
generation rates, reductions that could only be accomplished by some type of command-
and-control regulation similar to the types of controls traditionally enacted by the other
major EPA programs in air, water, drinking water, and toxic substances.
Additional new management requirements are also increasing the cost of hazardous
waste management. Under Section 3005(j)(l), existing surface impoundments will not be
allowed to receive, store, or treat hazardous wastes after November 8, 1988, unless the
impoundments are in compliance with the minimum technology standards applicable to new
surface impoundments. This means they must be retrofitted with two liners, with a
leachate collection system between the liners. The statute provides four exemptions from
the retrofitting requirement; exemption applications for existing impoundments must be
submitted by November 8, 1986.
Despite the availability of exemptions, the impacts of this program will be
substantial. Not only is the retrofit process expensive and time consuming, the Agency
expects that, in the process of renovation, many facilities will be found to have leaked
hazardous constituents, making them subject to the corrective action provisions of HSWA
(see below). Out of the 1,500 surface impoundments now operating, about one-half are
expected to close permanently. This reduction in capacity is expected to increase the costs
of managing the affected group of wastes significantly, and thereby provide another strong
incentive for waste minimization.
Difficulties in siting hazardous waste treatment, storage, and disposal capacity: The
land disposal restrictions program, as mandated by HSWA, is creating a strong demand for
substantial new waste treatment, storage, and disposal capacity. Hazardous waste
managers are therefore seeking new sites and planning to expand existing ones, but in the
process they are encountering the familiar problem of "not in my community." While there
are some instances where States have been successful in helping to site new hazardous
waste management facilities, local resistance is extremely hard to overcome. This intense
public opposition to the siting of many types of hazardous waste facilities may cause
shortages to persist even when market demand is strong. Generators' only alternative in
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Background
many cases may therefore be a reliance on source reduction and onsite recycling to reduce
the amount of waste they would otherwise send to offsite management facilities.
Permitting burdens and corrective action requirements: Treatment, storage, and
disposal facilities (TSDFs) must comply with extensive RCRA permit requirements.
Although the demand for new capacity will be high, permit requirements will tend to delay
substantially the availability of such capacity. The permit process usually takes several
years to complete and is costly. Because these delays tend to drive up the costs of all forms
of hazardous waste management temporarily and to limit overall treatment capacity, they
will provide an additional short-term incentive for waste minimization.
In the course of applying for a permit, facilities may also face the corrective action
provisions of HSWA Sections 3004(u) and (v). These subsections require that all permits
issued after November 8, 1984, include provisions requiring corrective action for releases
of hazardous wastes or constituents from any solid waste management unit (SWMU),
regardless of the date the waste was placed in the unit They also require that owners and
operators take corrective action for releases both within and beyond property boundaries as
necessary to protect human health and the environment. These potentially very expensive
requirements apply to all facilities to which a RCRA permit is issued after November 8,
1984, including both existing and new facia'ties.
Even though the demand for new treatment and disposal will be high, permitting
procedures will tend to delay the availability of that new capacity, temporarily driving up
the costs of all forms of hazardous waste management. Increased costs of waste
management provide a strong incentive for owners and operators to reduce the quantity of
waste generated or disposed of through the use of all forms of treatment and disposal.
Financial liability of hazardous waste generators: A generator's decision to invest
in either onsite recycling programs (which reduce the amount of wastes shipped offsite) or
source reduction (which reduces the amount of waste generated) will depend in part on that
generator's sensitivity to potential financial liability.
Waste management using offsite treatment, storage or disposal facilities puts a
generator at risk in two ways: (1) there is a potential for mismanagement of the waste by
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Background
the facility operators, and (2) there is the possibility of improper design of the treatment,
storage or disposal facility itself, which could lead to releases of contaminant even if the
facility is managed diligently. Even careful evaluation of both management and facility
cannot reduce these risks to zero. Liability of the generator may arise when the TSDF
owner or operator cannot or will not pay for remedial or corrective actions made necessary
by migration of wastes. In these situations, generators can be held liable under common
law theories of absolute, strict, joint, and several liability.11 Under the provisions of
CERCLA Sections 106 and 107, a generator can be held financially responsible for the
entire cleanup or restoration of a facility to which it has sent wastes. This is an incentive
for both source reduction and onsite recycling.
Shortages of liability insurance: The traditional means for reducing potential
hazardous waste management liabilities is through the purchase of insurance. Generators
of hazardous waste often obtain liability insurance as a prudent business practice, not
because they are required to do so by Federal requirements. Unfortunately, over the past
several years, the costs of all forms of commercial liability insurance available to generators
and owners or operators of TSDFs have risen sharply, while the availability of liability
insurance has been greatly reduced. Premiums have increased 50 to 300 percent, policies
have been cancelled even where loss ratios have been excellent, and many companies have
difficulty obtaining coverage at any price. This is particularly true of pollution liability
coverage (environmental impairment liability (EIL) insurance), which until 1985 was a
popular financial instrument used by generators and owners and operators of TSDFs to
protect themselves from third party and government claims for damages resulting from
environmental releases of hazardous substances.
The major reason for the current insurance capacity shortage is the insurance
underwriting cycle. Traditionally, the insurance industry derives its profits from the
investment of insurance policy premium income. During periods (such as the late 1970s to
early 1980s) when profit from investment income increased (due to high interest rates), a
11 Taken collectively, the practical interpretation of these terms is that a generator can be
held liable for all damages associated with pollution that could possibly have been emitted
from the facility, even if that emission cannot be documented, and even if other facilities
may have contributed wholly or partially to the alleged exposure.
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Background
highly competitive insurance industry accepted premiums that did not adequately reflect
risks under the presumption that investment income would offset policy losses and still
leave a substantial profit. As interest rates declined in the mid-1980s, investment income
also declined, leaving insurers with insufficient income to offset insurance policy risks. As
a result, the insurance industry incurred broad underwriting losses ($3.55 billion in 1984)
in virtually all lines of liability coverage. During periods when insurers are incurring broad
losses, capacity (i.e., investment in the insurance industry) decreases in all lines, but
especially in those deemed high risk, such as pollution liability coverage. As a result,
availability of these perceived high risk lines, including pollution liability, is insufficient.
Pollution liability is considered to be high risk by insurers because of:
• A perceived lack of actuarial data and universally applied risk
analysis methods to establish premiums that adequately reflect risk;
• Real and anticipated losses attributed to hazardous waste-related
legal claims for damages against ambiguous insurer contracts, due to
courts following the judicial precedent of interpreting ambiguities in
insurance contracts against the drafter (i.e., the insurer);
• A social perception that hazardous waste has not been and cannot be
adequately managed; and
Resultant expanding ton liability for virtually all policies, a
subsequent duty to defend those policies, and high legal costs and
policy losses due to court rulings in favor of the insured for
coverage that the insurer did not intend to provide.
The result of this situation is that many generators and handlers of hazardous
wastes are vulnerable to potentially enormous financial liability. In addition, units at over
1,000 of the 1,551 land disposal facilities which have stopped receiving wastes under
Section 3005(e) of RCRA lost interim status due to their inability to certify compliance with
applicable financial responsibility requirements under RCRA. Many of the 5,600 owners
and operators of TSDFs may be unable to comply with financial responsibility
requirements against third party claims for sudden or accidental releases because new
comprehensive general liability policies completely exclude pollution-related risks from
coverage. The shortage or high cost of insurance will also affect 100,000 to 150,000 small
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Background
quantity generators who must comply with RCRA regulations and may face potential strict,
joint, and several liability under State common law and CERCLA.
As of February 1986, only one insurer in the pollution insurance market still
offered insurance coverage for environmental pollution to facilities that do not maintain
other forms of coverage with the insurer. The market has experienced major changes with
respect to how companies employ risk transfer of their potential pollution loss exposure
through insurance. More companies and their risk managers are retaining the costs of their
potential pollution exposures because they are finding the general liability and, specifically,
pollution liability insurance unavailable and unaffordable because of high premiums, high
deductibles or self insured retentions, and restrictive policy language. Small quantity
generators and medium and large quantity generators alike have experienced the same
increases in insurance premiums. Small quantity generators, however, have been finding it
increasingly difficult to afford insurance because they often lack the financial flexibility and
resources typical of larger generators.
In order to insure themselves against liability, TSDFs who must comply with
RCRA provisions regarding liability coverage12 have resorted to creative methods to obtain
12 Sections 3004 and 3005 (e) of RCRA. Under 40 CFR 264.147(a) and (b) as amended by
51 FR 25354, July 11, 1986, owners and operators of hazardous waste treatment, storage,
or disposal facilities must demonstrate financial responsibility for bodily injury and
property damage arising from both sudden and accidental and nonsudden accidental
occurrences. For sudden and accidental occurrences, they must maintain liability coverage
of at least SI million per occurrence and $2 million per year aggregate, exclusive of legal
costs. For nonsudden occurrences, they must demonstrate financial responsibility of at
least S3 million per occurrence and 56 million annual aggregate, exclusive of legal costs;
this can be demonstrated through liability insurance, corporate guarantee, or a
combination of the two.
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Background
coverage.13 New instruments under development include: (1) formation of
associations—captive stock or mutual insurance companies, (2) licensed carrier fronting
programs for trust funds in which banks hold funds to cover liability, (3) letters of credit,
and (4) self insurance (e.g., financial test). Still, generators and TSDFs will continue to
have tremendous difficulty meeting pollution insurance requirements until fundamental
changes occur in the insurance marketplace. Perhaps one of the main changes that will
have a beneficial effect is a return to risk-based insurance, which should encourage waste
minimization, instead of the current attempt by insurance companies to recoup losses they
have incurred from cash-flow based underwriting in which they participated when interest
rates were extremely high in the early 1980s.
The net effect of this insurance shortage and its possible continuation for several
years with no predictable resolution has exerted pressure on industry to reduce hazardous
waste generation. In some instances, firms have already initiated source reduction and
alternative waste management practices as a direct response to their having to accept
increased uninsured liability. While specific information on these responses is difficult to
obtain, major companies are known to have substituted material inputs and changed
production processes in order to reduce the quantity of waste they generate. Action by
large companies (who can better afford the research and retooling necessary to minimize
wastes) has been faster than that of small companies, as overall waste generation on a per
unit output basis has dropped significantly since the mid-1970s.
Increases in insurance costs or an inability to obtain insurance will result in higher
treatment and disposal costs or the loss of available treatment or disposal capacity. This
13
Currently, generators are not required to have liability coverage under RCRA unless they
are treating, storing or disposing of wastes onsite. The liability coverage requirement
does not, however, apply if the generator's treatment and/or storage is in a tank or
container for less than 90 days. A proposed regulatory change published in 50 FR 33902
(August 1, 1985) suggested several alternatives for demonstrating financial responsibility,
including (1) maintaining existing financial requirements, (2) requiring additional
mechanisms for demonstrating financial capability, and (3) waiving or suspending the
current financial requirements altogether. EPA has recently published an interim final
rule that will allow TSDFs to use a corporate guarantee to satisfy their liability coverage
requirements (51 FR 25350, July 11, 1986). Furthermore, EPA has established a work
group which is considering more rulcmaking in this area, as suggested by 50 FR 33902
August 21, 1985.
— 25 —
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Background
will provide a strong incentive to reduce the quantity of waste to be disposed of through the
application of source reduction and onsite recycling techniques.
Public perception of company responsibilities: While the strongest incentives for
reducing waste generation are undoubtedly economic, many companies are setting up waste
minimization programs out of sensitivity to public concern over toxic chemicals. This type
of corporate good citizenship is perceived to have long-term benefits for good relations
between plants and local communities, as well as between companies and the general
public. Although the larger companies are most likely to recognize public relations benefits
in waste minimization, some medium and small-sized companies are also responding to
public interest.
Barriers to Waste Minimization
Despite the downward trend in hazardous waste generation, the following general
factors tend to discourage waste minimization programs in industry and elsewhere. They
must be recognized and dealt with appropriately in developing a Federal waste minimization
program.
Economic barriers: Although waste minimization practices often lead to cost
savings, availability of capital for plant modernization to upgrade plants is often a
significant obstacle to their implementation. Projects for waste minimization must
overcome internal hurdles for project funding. The benefits from waste minimization are
highly dependent on the probability and costs of hazardous waste releases and attendant
cleanup costs; other company projects are often competing for funding that offer higher,
more predictable, and more immediate returns on investment. Although major companies
usually have sufficient access to capital to upgrade inefficient processes, small and
medium-sized companies often do not. Nevertheless, such small companies could, in the
aggregate, generate large amounts of hazardous wastes. Specialty chemical companies,
agricultural chemical formulators, and metal finishing plants are examples of sectors
dominated by smaller firms, which nevertheless produce significant volumes of highly
toxic wastes and whose access to capital is limited.
— 26 —
-------
Background
Where capital is readily available, industries and plants within industries follow
predictable business cycles in production investments. Firms that have recently
modernized their facilities could perceive limited incentives to reinvest in alternative
processes until their current plant is amortized and requires modernization. Operating costs
and other financial burdens (such as reporting requirements) could also tend to discourage
investment in waste minimization. These factors can be less important where waste
minimization provides cost savings—as it frequently will—but in other situations, they will
discourage action.
Financial liability can, in at least one circumstance, also be a significant disincentive
for waste minimization. When generators make use of offsite recycling, they are liable
under CERCLA and common law for damages caused by their wastes, even if there is no
demonstration of negligence by the generator, and even when the wastes are no longer
under the generator's control. This concern should, however, be weighed against potential
liabilities surrounding the alternatives for managing this waste.
Technical barriers or considerations: There are practical limits to waste
minimization, especially with respect to source reduction. Certain products simply cannot
be manufactured without producing hazardous wastes, since some chemical process
reactions produce residuals. Excessive waste minimization requirements could, in such
cases, remove products from the market or put companies out of business entirely. A
hazardous waste analog to the zero discharge policy, calling for across-the-board cuts of
fixed percentages in waste generation, is therefore probably not realistic; in some
situations, possible source reductions may turn out to be minor and achievable only at great
expense. The law of diminishing returns suggests that the most easily effected and
cheapest reductions may often be the most significant; additional incremental expenditures
on waste reduction are likely to produce fewer and fewer results and at progressively
higher costs.
While performance standards can play a constructive role in forcing the
development of more environmentally sound technology, such standards can also produce
perverse effects. An instructive example is seen in the printing industry, where the
imposition of regulatory deadlines forced abandonment of research into new water-based
— 27 —
-------
Background
inks, in preference to adoption of incineration of solvent-based inks. Targets and timetables
for technology-forcing regulations would have to be carefully defined.
Another technical consideration in waste minimization is that industries producing
high volume or high toxicity wastes often operate largely through batch processes, where
waste minimization potential varies considerably among product lines and within the same
plants in different phases of their production cycle. This is especially true, for instance, of
the chemical and petrochemical industries. A source reduction measure must make sense
within the process schedules that produce complex sequences of wastes and may be
critically affected by the timing of waste production.
Source reduction measures must also be viewed in conjunction with potential for
treatment, because wastes produced by a given process may be comparatively easy to treat
or destroy, yet quite difficult to minimize through source reduction or recycling. Organic
wastes, for example, are usually easy to incinerate, yielding destruction efficiencies of
99.99 percent or greater. It may therefore make little sense to require minor percentage
reductions on waste generation when the remaining waste can or will be almost totally
destroyed through treatment, or may be profitably recycled.
Similarly, recycling is often technically limited by process realities and recycling
logistics. Off-specification chemicals (such as pesticides or pharmaceuticals) are examples
of products with little recycling potential. Even where wastes are technically recyclable, it
may be difficult to accumulate enough waste onsite to make the process economically
attractive. With respect to offsite recycling, it may be hard to establish permanent and
stable relationships among generators; generator and user processes have to be
synchronized, purity may vary over time, volumes of waste available may not meet
minimum recycler needs, transportation costs have to be acceptable, and price variations in
feedstocks and in product prices inevitably play an important role, i.e., the virgin material
could be less expensive than the recycled product
Regulatory barriers: Some of the provisions of RCRA and other environmental
statutes may tend to inhibit generators from pursuing waste minimization. Examples
include the following:
— 28 —
-------
Background
Source reduction sometimes requires the installation of new
machinery that can, under RCRA, be considered "treatment." This
in turn could require a generator to obtain a permit as a treatment,
storage, and disposal facility (TSDF), a process that is expensive
and generally requires two years to complete. In addition, HSWA
Sections 3004(u) and 3004(v) require permitted facilities to conduct
corrective action to clean up any contamination that could have
previously migrated from their facility. Facing such time delays and
expense, plants may prefer to pay for offsite treatment and disposal
rather than attempt source reduction.
The new definition of solid waste, promulgated by EPA to eliminate
loopholes in RCRA controls and inhibit unsafe (or "sham")
recycling, brings more wastes into the hazardous waste system.
This definitional change seems to be inhibiting some plants from
sending these wastes for recycling, because many companies believe
manifested wastes present greater financial liability for offsite
activities out of their immediate control.
Commercial recycling facilities that wish to increase their operations
might be reluctant to do so if the expansion were to require a
revision of their NPDES water pollution permit to authorize a
change in the composition of their discharges or allow for larger
flows.
The Outlook for Federal Waste Minimization Policy
Although waste minimization policy is interwoven with general issues of waste
management, waste minimization is ultimately a separate concept. Waste management
deals with wastes after they are created; waste minimization deals with avoiding the
generation of wastes altogether. At this stage of RCRA's development, the two ideas are
often perceived as alternative methods for protecting human health and the environment,
but, in the long term waste, minimization must take on a priority of its own.
EPA still has much to learn about the specifics and potential of waste minimization,
and is only beginning to develop an active strategy for studying and promoting it. This
report is, however, timely because it raises basic issues about the nature, direction, and
methods of environmental policy at a time when options are still open. Because the data are
insufficient and because it is still too soon to assess the effects of HSWA requirements,
EPA can do little more in this report than to suggest the principal issues of concern.
— 29 —
-------
Background
Nevertheless, the Agency does believe that the recommendations made on the basis of the
presentations in the next two chapters are the most positive and constructive steps that it can
take at this time.
— 30 —
-------
Chapter Two
EXISTING WASTE MINIMIZATION ACTIVITIES
The purpose of this chapter is to present the information that EPA has reviewed in
developing this Report to Congress. It draws extensively on the technical support material
developed for this report, Waste Minimization Issues and Options.1
' The chapter begins with a profile of hazardous waste generation in the United
States, discussing the volume and toxicity of wastes generated by different categories of
industry and commenting on trends. It continues with a discussion of current technical
approaches to waste reduction and recycling. The third section describes activities of the
States in facilitating waste minimization through mandatory and voluntary programs. The
final section of the chapter reviews EPA's existing activities in support of waste
minimization.
Profile of Current Waste Generation
In characterizing current hazardous waste generation for the purposes of developing
waste minimization policy, the following factors are most important:
• Waste quantities or volumes contributed by various industrial
sectors;
Waste toxicity;
Waste Minimization Issues and Options, Vols. 1 - 3, USEPA, Office of Solid Waste,
Washington, D.C., October 1986.
— 31 —
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
• Relationships between waste streams and the industries that generate
them (type, size, number of facilities); and
• Special issues for small quantity generators (SQGs).
The presentations in this chapter are drawn from four major studies of hazardous
waste generation: (1) a mail survey of hazardous waste generators conducted by EPA in
1981 as part of the regulatory impact analysis (RIA) for RCRA,2 (2) a study of hazardous
waste generation by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) based on surveys completed
in 1983,3 (3) the waste stream data base compiled from secondary sources in 1984 for use
in the RCRA Risk-Cost Analysis Model,4 and (4) the EPA 1985 survey of small quantity
generators.5
EPA has found that significant inaccuracies exist in the two principal national level
studies examined for this report. First, the age of the available source data reduces the
reliability of the derived statistics. Economic factors, environmental regulations, and
changes in manufacturing processes are known to have altered the quantity and quality of
waste generated over the past five years; these changes have not yet been documented.
Second, the source data suffer both from reporting errors and from the inherent difficulties
of accurately characterizing the wastes.^ Third, all the studies have extrapolated sample
findings to the country as a whole; inaccuracies can therefore exist because of limited
sampling sizes.
National Survey of Hazardous Waste Generators and Treatment, Storage and Disposal Facilities
Regulated Under RCRA in 1981, USEPA, Office of Solid Waste, Washington, D.C. 1984.
Hazardous Waste Management: Recent Changes and Policy Alternatives. Prepared for Senate
Committee on Environment and Public Works, Congressional Budget Office, 1985.
The RCRA Risk-Cost Analysis Model: Phase III Report — Appendix A. USEPA, Office of
Solid Waste, Washington, D.C., 1984. This data base includes some streams that currently have
no RCRA codes, but that meet the classification requirements of hazardous wastes. They are
included for the sake of completeness and, therefore, offer a somewhat fuller picture of hazardous
waste generation patterns than is shown by the CBO and RIA studies.
National Small Quantity Hazardous Waste Generator Survey, USEPA, Office of Solid Waste,
Washington, D.C., February 1985.
Wastes with a particular waste code may vary significantly in content over time, from plant to
plant and from industry to industry, making it very difficult to establish a "typical" content for any
waste.
— 32 —
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
In all of these studies, industries are identified by Standard Industrial Classification
(SIC) codes, down to the four-digit level.7 Use of the SIC classification code system for
defining industrial sectors is less than ideal for defining waste generation, since it usually
lacks the detail necessary to link individual wastes with individual processes.8
Analysis of Waste Volume
To date, EPA has classified 207 separate hazardous waste streams, originating from
33 industrial sectors. Estimates for the total amount of hazardous waste generated annually
range between 158.2 and 266 million metric tons, depending on the study used.
Figure 2-1 illustrates the contributions of the largest generators as described by
(a) the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Survey based on the 1983 data set and (b) the
RIA Mail Survey, based on 1981 data. In both surveys, four broad industrial sectors (as
defined by two-digit SIC codes) dominate. In the CBO survey, these are chemicals and
allied products, primary metals, petroleum and coal products, and fabricated metal
products. In the RIA Mail Survey, the high-ranking sectors are chemicals and allied
products, machinery (except electrical machinery), transportation equipment, and motor
freight transportation. Other sectors collectively contributed only a small fraction of the
wastes generated by the largest four.
The disagreement between the two surveys on the identity of the major generators is
significant and underscores the caution necessary in developing waste minimization policy.
The differences can be attributed partly to the different years in which the samples were
The Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system identifies establishments by types of activity.
Establishments are grouped together if they exhibit similar industrial characteristics. Within a
general two-digit SIC category, there are more detailed three- and four-digit categories. Four-digit
SIC codes (under a general two-digit heading) group all establishments primarily engaged in the
same kind of economic activity.
While the SIC system is highly useful for making links with some other types of information, it
may be desirable in the future to look also at the more process-oriented Source Classification
Codes (SCC), since they specifically identify the processes that generate waste streams. Source
Classification Codes (SCC) have been developed by the EPA Office of Air Quality Planning &
Standards (OAQPS) for their Aerometric and Emissions Reporting Systems (AEROS). SCCs
identify production processes within an industrial operation based on equipment type, fuel type,
product, capacity, etc.
33 —
-------
Existing Waste Minimization Activities
Figure 2-1
Industry Ranking by Hazardous Waste Generation
Industry Ranking by Hazardous Waste Generation,
Based RCRA Mail Survey
13%
10%
<.5% (SQGs)
68%
Ffl Chemicals & Allied Products
(SIC 28)
Machinery, Except Electrical
(SIC 35)
Transportation Equipment
(SIC 37)
Motor Freight Transportation
(SIC 42)
Other SICs (not SQGs)
Small Quantity Generators (all
industry groups)
—B—
Industry Ranking by Hazardous Waste Generation,
Based on CBO Study
7.2%
5.5%
9.6%
11.8%
18%
47.9%
Chemical & Allied Products
(SIC 28)
Primary Metals (SIC 33)
Petroleum & Coal Products
(SIC 29)
Fabricated Metal Products
(SIC 34)
Rubber & Plastic Products
(SIC 30)
Miscellaneous Manufacturing
(SIC 39)
Machinery, Except Electrical
(SIC 35)
Transportation Equipment
(SIC 37)
Motor Freight Transportation
(SIC 42)
All Other Categories
Sources: Office of Solid Waste, 1984, National Survey of Hazardous Waste Generators and Treatment .Storage and
Disposal Facilities Regulated Under RCRA, USEPA; Congressional Budget Office, May 1985, Hazardous Waste
Management: Recent Changes and Policy Alternatives, The Congress of the United States.
— 34 —
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
taken and partly to differences in each study's definition of "hazard" and applied
classification schemes. As noted above, sampling and reporting errors may also be
important. More current data are clearly needed.
One fact on which all available data agree, however, is that the chemical industry
(SIC 28: Chemicals and Allied Products) alone contributes far more hazardous waste than
any other industrial sector: 47.9 percent as measured by CBO, 68 percent as measured by
the RIA Mail Survey. Another area of general agreement is that small quantity generators
collectively contribute only a small amount of hazardous waste—approximately 0.5 percent
of hazardous waste by volume, according to the 1985 Small Quantity Generator (SQG)
survey.
Aggregate figures for two-digit SIC codes comprise the contributions of many
different individual waste streams which themselves vary widely in size. Patterns of waste
generation within industrial sectors are similar to patterns across industrial sectors—a few
waste streams tend to dominate the profile of each sector, with the volumes of the
remaining streams decreasing dramatically. Table 2-1 shows total volume for each sector
as shown in the RCRA Risk-Cost model data base. The recurrent pattern, potentially
significant for minimizing waste volume and easing burdens on treatment capacity, is that
the majority of waste volume is contributed by a small number of streams. In fact, if
hazardous waste streams are viewed in descending order of volume across all industries, it
is clear that the great majority of waste volume comes from a small fraction of the total
number of streams, as.shown in Figure 2-2. Note that the range of even the first 100
ranking streams is very large, spanning from 24 million metric tons per year9 down to
5,800 metric tons per year.
Analysis of Waste Toxicity
In defining waste minimization, HSWA specifically refers to reducing both the
volume and the toxicity of hazardous wastes. This is appropriate, since impacts on human
The highest volume ranking stream listed in the RCRA Risk/Cost Analysis Model data base
happens to be a dilute wastcwater from the explosives manufacturing industry; it is included in the
data base because it contains explosive, rather than toxic, materials.
35 —
-------
TaM« 2-1
Waste Stream Volume* for Hottest Volume Generator*
MustrW
Sector
Chemicals
andAUed
Product*
RCRA
Code*
Characteristic
Characteristic
Characteristic
K011
Characteristic
Characteristic
Characteristic
K009
Characteristic
K104
Characteristic
Characteristic
Characteristic
Characteristic
Characteristic
P029
Characteristic
Characteristic
K027
K022
Characteristic
Characteristic
Remaining 136 streams
Totals:
158
Volume
(metric Tons
per year)
24.000,000
8.172,000
5.448.000
3.181.000
1.398,300
742,100
486,000
399,500
388,000
332.070
291,500
190.600
187,000
172.500
160,000
151.222
136,200
118.000
107,900
106.200
101,700
96.200
1.111.676
47,568,468
Percent of
Total Volume
50%
17%
11%
7%
3%
2%
1%
1%
1%
1%
1%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
2%
100%
Industrial RCflA
Sector Cod*'
Primary
Metal*
Characteristic
K062
Characteristic
Characteristic
Characteristic
K100
Characteristic
Characteristic
Characteristic
K060
K061
Characteristic
Characteristic
K087
Characteristic
Characteristic
K069
Characteristic
Characteristic
Characteristic
Characteristic
F012
Totals: 22
Volume 1 Percent
(metric tons I of Total
par year) | Volume
16,915,102 72%
2.950.000 13%
2,139.100 9%
640.000 3%
153.300 1%
139.500 1%
85.400 0%
83,600 0%
72.200 0%
72.000 0%
70.000 0%
60.000 0%
42.000 0%
39.800 0%
32,800 0%
30.000 0%
28.600 0%
16.000 0%
11.000 0%
8.000 0%
500 0%
190 0%
23,589,092 100%
Industrial
Sector
Petrol •uni
and Coal
Products
Totals:
Fabricated
Metal
Products
Totals:
RCRA
Code'
K048
Characteristic
K051
Characteristic
K049
Characteristic
Characteristic
K052
K050
Characteristic
10
Characteristic
F006
Characteristic
P007
4
Volume
(metric tons
per year)
297.600
263,900
196,200
154.700
92,400
40,300
20.600
7.100
1.700
1.000
1,075.500
17,300,000
488,400
30.700
1,990
17,821,090
Percent
of Total
Volume
28%
25%
18%
14%
9%
4%
2%
1%
0%
0%
100%
97%
3%
0%
0%
100%
• Waste streams labeled •Characteristic' are hazardous
wastes under RCRA definition ol Characteristic Wastes
Source Office ol Solid Waste, March 1.1984 the RCRA RisK-Cost Analysis
Model Waste Stream Data Base,' USEPA.
-------
Existing Waste Minimization Activities
25,000,000 "I
20,000.000 -
15,000,000 .
Metric
Tons/Yr.
10,000,000
5,000,000 -
Figure 2-2
Hazardous Waste Stream Volume
100 Highest Volume Hazardous Waste Streams
Source: Office of Solid Waste. March 1.1984, The RCRA Rtak-Coet Analysis Model Waste Stream Data Base. USEPA.
Figure 2-3
Hazardous Waste Stream Toxlctty Scores:
Descending Order of Waste Stream Volume
Cumulative
Percent
100%
100th Ranking Stream:
5,800 metric tons/year
7.00 •
6.00 •
5.00 •
4.00 •
Toxicity
Score
3.00 •
2.00 •
1.00 •
000 •
rju -. - - rt J.
*Jn
,
|, |
|
II,
.11 1 I'll , . ll
100 Highest Volume Hazardous Waste Streams
Sources. Data Irom the RCRA Rek-Cost Data Base, with the EPA toxlcrty ranking developed lor the land disposal restnction program schedule
— 37 —
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
health and the environment are not simply a function of the quantity of a hazardous waste
produced (which relates at least indirectly to public exposure), but also of its toxicity. The
relative toxicity of hazardous wastes will therefore be important in setting priorities for
waste minimization.
For the purposes of illustration, this report provides an indication of the relative
toxicity of various wastes through use of a simple scoring approach that takes into account
both the concentration of hazardous constituents within each waste and the estimated
potency of the constituents with regard to adverse human health effects. ^ Estimates of the
concentration of constituents in various waste streams are available from the data base
developed for the RCRA Risk Cost Analysis Model; toxicity scores for the main
constituents found in these wastes have been developed for setting the land disposal ban
schedule.11 These two sets of data have been combined to estimate toxicity scores for
various wastes.
In Figure 2-3, the results of this scoring technique are applied to the 100 highest
volume streams listed in Figure 2-2 to demonstrate that hazardous waste streams vary
widely in their toxicity. Many high volume wastes are diluted with large amounts of water,
soil, or other nonhazardous materials and, therefore, exhibit low toxicity scores.
Conversely, many low volume wastes may be highly concentrated with toxic materials;
discarded off-specification chemicals are an example of low-volume, potentially high-
toxicity wastes. While there are many significant exceptions, it is often the case that the
volume and toxicity of individual streams are inversely correlated—the higher the toxicity
of a stream, the lower its volume is likely to be, and vice versa.
10 For a more complete discussion of the difficulties of measuring toxicity and documentation of the
derivation of the toxicity scores used here, see Appendix D.
11 The methodology for development of the toxicity scores used here is documented in
Documentation for the Development of Toxicity and Volume Scores for the Purpose of Scheduling
Hazardous Wastes, USEPA, Office of Solid Waste, Washington, D.C., March 28, 1985.
— 38 —
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
This point is important since, in many cases, HSWA's goal of toxicity and volume
reduction may turn out to be in conflict, at least for setting minimization priorities.12
Policies that focus on reducing the overall volume of hazardous wastes may not necessarily
be best from the point of view of protecting human health and the environment. On the
other hand, if the overriding priority in waste minimization is to lower burdens on treatment
capacity, the Agency might want to focus on a different set of waste streams than if the
main goal is to reduce high toxicity streams.
Patterns of waste volume and toxicity applying to broad, two-digit industrial groups
appear to be repeated within individual sectors within the industrial group. Table 2-2
examines patterns of waste volume and waste toxicity for three four-digit industrial sectors:
industrial organic chemicals (SIC 2865), pesticides and agricultural chemicals (SIC 2979),
and petroleum refining (SIC 2911). It compares waste streams in terms of classes of
toxicity and volume so as to show them on comparable scales. Class 10 implies the highest
tenth in volume or toxicity of all wastes generated nationally; Class 1 implies the lowest
tenth in volume or toxicity.
It is unwise to pursue this type of scoring very far at this time, since the data on
which it relies are uncertain and the toxicity scoring algorithm used can yield only the most
approximate idea of relative hazards. Nevertheless, this exercise does provide insight into
the difficulties of estimating the ultimate human health and environmental risks of different
hazardous waste management practices. It underscores the assumption that wastes vary
widely in both toxicity and volume and that there are no consistent patterns across all
wastes or industry sectors. It emphasizes the importance of developing better industry-
specific and waste-stream-specific data, and the need to set waste minimization priorities
carefully and deliberately with regard to specific waste management goals. Actions may be
very different depending upon whether the goal of waste minimization is to relieve capacity
shortages, reduce risks to human health or the environment, or minimize economic
inefficiencies.
Yet another point to note is that toxicity is not the controlling consideration for listing all
hazardous waste streams. According to the RCRA Risk/Cost Analysis Model Data Base, for
instance, the highest volume stream identified turns out to be hazardous because it contains large
amounts of nitrocellulose, and it is treated as hazardous because it is explosive rather than toxic.
— 39 —
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
I
11
s
I
II
.83
CO GO 00 flO
II
o
— 40 —
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
Small Quantity Generators: In 1984, HSWA expanded the universe of regulated
generators under EPA by reducing the exclusion from hazardous waste regulations for
those firms that generate over 1,000 kg or more per month down to 100 kg or more per
month.13 Studies reveal that the small quantity generators represent by far the largest
number of hazardous waste producing establishments in the U.S., but they contribute only
a small amount of overall hazardous waste generated annually—less than 0.5 percent.
Despite the amount of waste generated, the SQGs are of particular interest because
they may be less capable of dealing with the waste they generate than larger volume
generators. They also are likely to have more difficulty in complying with the new
regulations and may also be less capable of implementing waste minimization techniques.
Such burdens may result in a higher percentage of the SQGs resorting to illegal dumping.
The extent of current illegal disposal activities is a matter of speculation, but a report to
Congress based on 1983-84 data recognized it as a potential problem.14 As the cost of
managing their hazardous wastes increases, many economically distressed firms may see
illegal disposal as the only way to continue operating.
Figure 2-4 indicates that the largest percentage of SQGs are nonmanufacturing
concerns, primarily vehicle maintenance (70 percent). Manufacturing establishments
account for only about 14 percent of the total SQGs, with most of these falling in the metals
category. The distribution of waste generated by volume differs between SQGs and all
Small Quantity Generators (SQGs) are defined by the EPA in terms of the quantity of waste they
generate, not by size of firm. SQGs are those firms, "...who produce less than 1,000 kg of
hazardous waste per month." National Small Quantity Hazardous Waste Generator Survey ,
USEPA, Office of Solid Waste, Washington, D.C., February 1985, p.l.
14 Illegal Disposal of Hazardous Waste: Difficult to Detect or Deter , U.S. House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Investigations & Oversight Committee on Public Works and Transportation,
GAO/RCED-85-2, February 22, 1985. The report also listed the disposition of 28 of 34 cases
where illegal disposal or failure to follow regulations occurred and resulted in conviction. Many
were small firms (e.g., auto repair shop, septic tank servicing company, pool cleaning company,
machine shop operation) that met the pre-HSWA criterion for generation (less than 1000
kg/month) but were not large producers. This does not assume that small generators of hazardous
waste are the predominant class of illegal dumpers or that they dump the largest percentage of
waste; they may actually be less capable of camouflaging their dumping activities than larger more
resourceful manufacturers, transporters, or disposers.
— 41 —
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
Figure 2-4
Distribution of Small Quantity Generators by Industry Group
9%
13%
70%
Q Vehicle Mantenance
B Other Non-manufacturing
H Metal Manufacturing
E3 Construction
D Other Manufacturing
Source: Office of Solid Waste,
February 1985. National Small
Quantity Hazardous Waste
Generator Survey, USEPA.
Figure 2-5
Distribution of Small Quantity Generator Waste by Waste Stream
5%
(30,000 MT/yr)
18%
(108,000 MT/yr)
(90,000 MT/yr)
15%
62%
(370,000 MT/yr.)
S3 Lead-Acid Batteries
E9 Solvents
Q Acids and Alkalies
B Other
Source: Office of Solid Waste,
February 1985. National Small
Quantity Hazardous Waste
Generator Survey, USEPA.
— 42 —
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
other industries.15 For SQGs, the major portion of waste generated is lead-acid batteries
(62 percent), primarily from the nonmanufacturing vehicle maintenance establishments (see
Figure 2-5).16 Solvents, acids, and alkalies provide an additional 23 percent of the wastes
generated by SQGs. These wastes are primarily from metal manufacturing, vehicle
maintenance, equipment repair, printing, and construction. The balance of SQG waste (15
percent) comes from pesticides, photographic wastes, dry cleaning filters and filtration
residues, ignitable wastes, and spent plating wastes.
The SQG survey data do not allow for determination of key constituent
concentrations in the waste stream for each industry, but some of the SQG waste streams
are similar to those of larger industries. For example, the waste streams from SQG
chemical manufacturing include ignitable wastes, spent catalysts, spent solvents, heavy
metal dusts, and strong acids and alkaline wastes, waste streams that are similar to those
generated by larger firms in the same industrial sectors.
Current Industrial Waste Minimization Practices
The two major categories of waste minimization activities considered in this report
are source reduction and recycling. Each of these general activities comprises a wide range
of technologies and practices, with the nature and extent of waste minimization varying
dramatically from one industrial sector to the next. Current source reduction and recycling
practices are discussed separately below.
15 The industrial categories are not directly comparable among the SQG report and the industrial
categories used by in the CBO study, the RCRA Risk/Cost Analysis Model, and the RIA Survey.
The SQG report groups multiple 4-digit SICs together for each industry, whereas the other data are
grouped individually by 4-digit SIC code.
Lead acid batteries are a highly recyclable waste and, therefore, less of a problem for the
environment. While the SQG report estimated that nearly 90 percent of lead acid batteries were
recycled, a more recent study for EPA's Office of Policy Analysis (May 1986) estimates that
changes in the lead market have recently reduced the amount of lead recycled. This report stated
that by 1985 the battery recycling rate had dropped to about 59 percent from a high of 87 percent
in 1980. The report further estimated that given current market conditions and predictions,
"...there is no reason to expect that secondary production will increase from current levels, and it
may even decline further." See:7Vie Impacts of Lead Industry Economics on Battery Recycling,
USEPA, Office of Policy Analysis, Washington, D.C., May 16, 1986.
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
Source Reduction
As discussed in Chapter One, source reduction is any activity that reduces or
eliminates the volume or toxicity of a waste exiting from a manufacturing process. The
activities most readily identifiable with source reduction are in-plant changes, such as the
following:
• Input material modification: use of higher grade, more pure material
inputs.
• Technology modifications: changing the method of production or the
production equipment itself.
• Procedural/institutional management practices: good operating
practices or housekeeping practices.
• Product substitution: replacing original materials with substitutes of
equivalent function.
In the past, industry typically considered the implementation of source reduction
practices only if such practices resulted in improved product yield (such as through
improved chemical conversion) or lower manufacturing costs (such as from more efficient
operating procedures, decreased use of raw materials, energy conservation, or lower labor
costs). However, since about 1970, environmental regulations under RCRA, the Clean
Water Act, and Clean Air Act have also influenced the context in which industry has
calculated these costs; in some cases, source reduction has occurred as a direct consequence
of regulation, such as under the Clean Water Act requirements regarding waste water
treatment.
Preliminary estimates suggest that industry might be generating more than twice the
amount of waste per unit of production than it does at present if no source reduction
techniques were in place today.17 This estimate is derived from an extrapolation of the
effectiveness and extent of source reduction practices used in 22 individual industrial and
manufacturing processes to a national basis. Moreover, this estimate of the effectiveness
and rate of current application of the various source reduction techniques could only be
17 Waste Minimization Issues and Options, Volume I, USEPA, Office of Solid Waste, Washington,
D.C., October 1986. .
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
based on EPA's engineering analysis of qualitative information gathered from literature
reviews, case studies, trade associations, and other sources. The results, therefore, must
necessarily be viewed as exploratory rather than definitive representations of the waste
minimization issue.
Table 2-3 illustrates the relative extent of current and potential source reduction, by
volume. These estimates, based on the qualitative information described above,18 reflect
current practices and trends in the industries named. They do not consider current
technological innovations, implementation of HSWA's new programs, or other incentives
now faced by generators. It should be noted that much of the estimated current reduction
did not occur as a result of actions designed specifically to reduce waste, but were largely
incidental to efforts to maximize yields, improve operating efficiency, and comply with
other Federal environmental regulations (e.g., the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act). It
should be emphasized that, despite any current waste minimization, over 200 million metric
tons of hazardous waste continue to be generated annually.
With the limited information available, it appears that American industry has made
progress towards minimizing waste. Based on its studies of industrial waste minimization
practices, however, EPA believes that significant additional reductions can still be made.
While there may be technical limits to the degree of source reduction that can be achieved in
an individual production process, EPA believes that in most cases such limits have not yet
been reached. If generators are to achieve their source reduction potential, significant
additional efforts will be needed.
Available information suggests that the chemical and allied products industry,
which is the largest generator of hazardous waste, still has the greatest potential for volume
reduction. This appears to be true despite the fact that this industry has already reduced its
waste volume to a greater degree than other industrial sectors. Preliminary evidence
suggests that, within the next 25 years, aggregate waste generation volumes can be reduced
an additional 15 to 30 percent by the extension of existing source control techniques and the
18 ibid.
45
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E?
OQ
Table 2-3
Estimated Extent of Current and Future Source Reduction
Industry Sector
Chemicals & Allied Products
Primary Metals
Petroleum & Coal Products
Fabricated Metals
Rubber & Plastics
Machinery (except Elec.)
Miscellaneous Manuf.
Transportation Equip.
Motor Freight Transportation
Electric & Electronic Equip.
Wood Preserving
Drum Reconditioning
Percent of Current
Waste Generated
Nationally
47.9
18.0
11.8
9.6
5.5
2.1
1.8
1.1
0.8
0.7
0.7
<0.1
Extent of Estimated
Source Reduction
since Mld-70's
High
High
Medium
Low-Medium
High
Medium
Medium
Medium
Low-Medium
Low
High
High
Potential for
Future Source
Reduction
Medium
Medium
Medium
Medium-High
Medium
Medium
Medium
Medium
Medium-High
Low-Medium
Low-High
Low-High
Volume of Waste
Remaining after
Future Reductions
Very High
Medium-High
Medium
Medium
Low-Medium
Low-Medium
Low-Medium
Very Low
Very Low
Very Low
Very Low
Very Low
Source: Office of Solid Waste. October 1, 1986. "Waste Minimization Issues and Options."
Volume I. USEPA. Washington, D.C.. Interpolation of data in text. Data is based
upon Congressional Budget Office, and RIA Mail Survey.
I
c-.
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
development and application of new technologies.19 It should be noted, however, that
some firms or small industries may not be able to achieve such levels of reduction.
Input material modification: The effectiveness of input material modification as a
source reduction technique generally differs according to the type of processing involved.
Raw materials that are directly synthesized (converted) into a product can be purified prior
to processing to reduce waste generation but, since most primary feed materials used in
synthesis are already relatively pure, this technique generally results in minimal source
reduction. For example, the use of a more costly, purer, propylene feed in the synthesis of
acrylonitrile does not result in an appreciable decrease in the volume of waste that is
generated.
Where a process is essentially a purification step, the use of a higher grade (more
pure) material or ore yields less waste. The use of a higher grade crude in petroleum
refining, for example, reduces the amount of impurities requiring removal during
processing. Auxiliary raw materials, which are used in a process but are not converted into
product, can sometimes be replaced with less toxic, more environmentally safe, materials.
Examples include the substitution of innocuous biodegradable detergents for toxic
chlorinated solvents and the use of less toxic compounds in lieu of chromate corrosion
inhibitors in cooling towers. Sometimes, however, a manufacturer may substitute a
material into the process not because the waste would be less toxic but because the waste is
simply not regulated by EPA (i.e., would not be defined as hazardous under Subtitle C of
RCRA).
Technology modifications: In certain instances, technology modifications or
substitutes are also effective in minimizing wastes. A product can sometimes be
manufactured by two or more distinct processes. Certain processes, such as the chloride
process for producing titanium dioxide, generate considerably less waste than alternative
processes, such as the sulfate process. Unfortunately, modification of existing facilities
can involve considerable research and development and capital investments, and can require
a lengthy implementation period.
19 Ibid., pp. 3-22.
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
Inefficient chemical reactions in a process are a major source of increased waste
generation. Improving the efficiency of the process through modification of catalysts,
reactor design, and operating parameters has been shown to reduce the quantity of waste
generated significantly. For example, in the production of acrylonitrile by the catalytic
ammoxidation of propylene, switching from an antimony-uranium catalyst to a
ferrobismuth phosphomolybdate catalyst has boosted the conversion of acrylonitrile by 35
percent. In another instance, there has been a significant decrease in tar formation where
changes in reactor design improved mixing for the manufacture of epichlorohydrin.
Attaining zero waste generation, however, is currently beyond the technical capabilities of
most chemical processors.
Modification of equipment is another way to reduce waste generation. The
invention of mechanical wipers to scrape the sides of paint tanks, for example, reduces the
exposed volume of waste paint that would otherwise produce fugitive volatile organic
compound (VOC) emissions. Similarly, process automation, which helps optimize product
yields by automatically adjusting process parameters, has in many cases minimized
operator error, reduced the likelihood of spills, and discouraged the production of off-
specification materials. As noted earlier, these off-specification materials can be highly
toxic, albeit lower volume, wastes.
Water conservation can also result in significant waste reduction. Efficient product
washing results in reduced sludge generation by minimizing the amount of product lost to
the wash water and the quantity of wastewater that is generated.
Technology modification is currently a central focus of waste minimization.
Generally these changes are most cost-effective when implemented during a plant's
planning or design period or when a plant is retooling and replacing worn out equipment.
Retrofitting plants that have already been designed and/or constructed is often expensive
and difficult. Consequently, while technology modification may be of limited effectiveness
in reducing waste generation and toxicity from existing sources, it can be effective in future
expansion and construction.
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
Procedural/Institutional management practices: "Good operating practices" or
"good housekeeping practices" involve the alteration of existing procedural, organizational,
or institutional aspects of a manufacturing process. The goal is to limit unnecessary
generation of waste attributable to human intervention (or the lack of it). Employee
training, management initiatives, inventory control, waste stream segregation,
improvements in materials handling, scheduling improvements, spill and leak prevention,
and preventive maintenance are all examples of good operating practices. Others include
the scheduling of batch operations to limit the frequency of equipment cleaning and,
consequently, waste generation; the segregation of hazardous wastes from nonhazardous
wastes to minimize the volume of contaminated wastes; and the reduction of overspray and
runoff from spraying by the paint booth operator during paint application (refer to
Appendix A's section on Segregation of Wastes for additional examples).
Product substitution: Replacement of an original product with a different product
that is intended for the identical use can be an effective method of source reduction. For
example, integrated pest management, an alternative to pesticide use in certain applications,
reduces pesticide production and, in turn, the waste generated during pesticide production
and application. The substitution of concrete pilings for creosote-treated timbers eliminates
wastes from the manufacture of the creosote-treated pilrngs. Substitution of less toxic
solvents, such as petroleum solvents for more toxic solvents such as perchloroethylene or
trichloroethylene, generates a spent solvent waste that is less toxic.
It is difficult to quantify the current status or effectiveness of this source reduction
technique. Each substitution needs to be evaluated on a case or application-specific basis.
The viability of a substitute can be based on:
Whether the substitute can function adequately as a replacement;
Whether the economic cost of a substitute justifies its use as a
replacement,
Whether the manufacture and disposal of a substitute reduces
environmental consequence;
Whether the cost/environmental benefit of the substitute is
sufficiently attractive; and
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
• Socio-political factors, such as government action (e.g.,
procurement policy) to promote the substitute.
Tradeoffs have to be weighed prior to the selection of substitutes. For example,
water-based inks, sometimes used in gravure and flexographic printing, have the advantage
of being less toxic than solvent-based inks, but require more energy to dry, possess a low
gloss, can cause paper to curl, and occasionally require brief process stoppages.
Petroleum solvents can be used in drycleaning, but they are much more flammable than the
more commonly used but more toxic perchloroethylene.
Available data are insufficient to quantify the current effectiveness of source
reduction practices in reducing volume or toxicity. In qualitative terms, data indicate that
industry has already considerably reduced the volume of its wastes. Most of these source
control methods, however, have been employed (1) to reduce costs or improve product
quality, and, in turn, increase profits and (2) to respond to existing environmental
regulations. Rarely have these practices been used solely for the purpose of waste
minimization. Based on EPA's analysis, information suggests that further significant
source reduction does appear feasible and practicable.
Recycling
Viewed generically, "recycling" encompasses both reuse and reclamation activities.
The discussion in this section on recycling activities regulated under HSWA pertains to
hazardous waste recycling for materials recovery as well as for energy recovery. A
recycler's decision as to how to treat a waste is principally determined by the character of
specific waste streams or waste mixtures. Where treatment should take place (either onsite
or offsite), however, is a function of a generator's management practices which include:
• Sensitivity to insurance liability,
• Proximity to offsite recycling facilities,
• Economic costs related to the transportation of wastes,
• The volume of wastes available for processing, and
• Costs related to storage of waste onsite compared to offsite.
— 50 —
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
Recycling is characterized by three major practices: (1) direct use or reuse of a
waste in a process, (2) recovery of a secondary material for a separate end use such as the
recovery of a metal from a sludge, and (3) removal of impurities from a waste to obtain a
relatively pure reusable substance. (Practices (2) and (3) are defined as reclamation by
EPA.)
Materials recovery: Although recycling of selected streams is practiced to a
considerable degree by certain industries, only about 4 percent of the hazardous waste
generated in the United States was recycled in 1981, according to the 1981 RIA Mail
Survey. Of the waste that was recycled, 81 percent by volume was recycled onsite.
Offsite recycling, however, is becoming increasingly common with the advent of
commercial recyclers and direct transfer of wastes from generators to others who can reuse
the wastes. Table 2-4 summarizes these data for the ten highest volume waste generating
industries.
Recycled wastes are used as feedstocks in production processes or as substitutes
for commercial chemical products. Examples include:
• The reuse of solvents for equipment cleaning;
The recycling of collected pesticide dusts at pesticide formulators;
and
• The reuse of ferric chloride wastes from titanium dioxide
manufacturing as a wastewater conditioner in water treatment.
The proportion of waste that is recycled is both industry and waste-specific. In
general, certain wastes, such as solvents, tend to be recycled more often than others, such
as pesticides. Factors that influence whether an industry recycles its waste include (1) the
type of waste generation process used; (2) the volume, composition, and uniformity of
wastes; (3) whether uses and reuses of the wastes have been identified, and (4) availability
and price of virgin materials relative to the costs of recycling and storing the wastes.
Toxicity of the waste does not appear to be a direct factor in the recyclability of a generated
waste, although, as noted previously, high volume wastes, which are often less toxic, are
more commonly recycled. Based on limited data, some industry-specific observations can
be made:
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
I i
•3 01
I 1
O)
2
* •;
il
I
I i
i I
I]
»- <\i at
d o d
«?
o !
OJ
w
-68
in oo
-
-------
Existing Waste Minimization Activities
• As shown in Figure 2-6, three manufacturing industries,
transportation equipment, chemical and allied products, and primary
metals, account for 91 percent of the total hazardous waste recycled
in 1981.
• In Figure 2-7, it is apparent that while these three sectors may
account for the largest portion of the total volume of waste recycled,
the amount they recycle compared to the total waste generated by all
sectors is actually very small.
• Eighty-one percent of those recycled wastes were recycled onsite.
Data indicate that large generators tend to recycle onsite, while
smaller generators who recycle ship their wastes offsite, often to
commercial recyclers, because they lack (1) onsite space or (2) a
waste volume of sufficient quantity to justify the expense of
recycling equipment.
On review of the available data, most notably the 1981 RIA Mail Survey, one can
draw certain conclusions about the types of waste streams that are most often recycled.
Generally, the streams that are recycled in the greatest volumes are dilute waste streams
containing a constituent that can be reused in large-scale applications by a generator. This
was true in 1981 for the chemical and allied products sector, which recycled spent acids
and alkaline solutions (classified as D002 wastes under RCRA); the transportation
equipment industry, which recycled its wastewater treatment sludges from electroplating
(F006) and chromium plating (D007) processes; and the primary metals industry, which
recycled spent pickle liquor (K062). These streams are of varying toxicity, and data are
inconclusive as to whether toxicity plays a role in a stream's being recycled.
Solvents tend to be recovered in larger proportion than other wastes. This is
because there is both an existing technology to allow recovery and because a market exists
for the recycled solvent. The available technology (e.g., distillation) is relatively
inexpensive to operate and can attain high purity levels (95 percent or higher). In other
cases, however, production processes generate wastes that are not practical for recovery
since the recovered wastes themselves would not be useful in production. RCRA K-code
wastes fall into this category. In these cases, source reduction technologies may be more
appropriate to achieve waste minimization.
— 53 —
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
Million
Gallons
Annually
30,000
25,000
20,000 • •
15,000 •
10,000 ••
5,000 • •
0
Figure 2-6
Comparison of Total Volume Hazardous Waste Generated to Total Volume
Recycled by SIC Category
28,000
10,030
Total Recycled
Total Generated
900
2,300
340
170
1,000
137
Transportation Chemicals and Primary Metals
Equipment Allied Products
Other SICs
Sourot: Office ol SoUd Waste, 1984, National Survey of Hazardous Watte Generator* and Treatment, Storage, and Disposal FacjIMe* Regulated Under RCR/
In 1981. USEPA.
Figure 2-7
Distribution of Total Volume* of Hazardous Waste Recycled during 1981, by SIC
Category
11%
11%
22%
*Total volume of hazardous waste recycled in 1981 was
1,580 million gallons
56,00%
«& Transportation Equipment
D Chemicals and Allied Products
IS Primary Metals
D Other SICs
Source: Office of Solid Waste. 1984 •National Survey of Hazardous Waste
Generators and Treatment. Storage, and Disposal Facilities Regulated
Under RCRA in 1981.' USEPA
-------
Existing Waste Minimization Activities
Energy recovery: Based on the 1981 RIA Mail survey, data on recycling indicate
that recycling for materials recovery and reuse appears to be more popular than fuel use or
energy recovery. There are two reasons why this is so. First, some wastes that could be
recycled for energy recovery can also be reclaimed and reused over and over. Energy
recovery, in contrast, destroys the inputs. Only when the waste is too "dirty"
(contaminated from repeated reuse) do generators consider energy recovery a desirable
option. The 1981 data may not, however, provide a completely accurate picture of current
practices because of recent developments in energy recovery technology. Many
technologies were not available in 1981, and others are only beginning to be commercially
available today. Solvents tend to be used for energy recovery because they can possess
high energy values. Data from the RIA Mail Survey (see Figure 2-8 on recycling practices
for five waste streams) indicate that solvent wastes are either the most often or nearly the
most often waste recycled as a fuel supplement.20
Data from the survey on hazardous waste generators indicates that among the
sample of generators handling their wastes most frequently onsite, energy recovery was
reported 78 times as a waste management objective. The types of wastes that generators
use for onsite energy recovery are those that fall under the RCRA Code for characteristic
ignitable wastes as well as spent non-halogenated solvents, spent halogenated solvents, and
slop oil emulsion solids from the petroleum refining industry. Waste managers would also
National Profiles Report for Recycling: A Preliminary Assessment, Draft Report, USEPA, Office
of Solid Waste, Washington, D.C. July 8, 1985, pp. 3-1 to 3-4. The five generic waste streams
are defined as follows:
Solvents: Halogenated and/or nonhalogenated solvent wastes.
Halogenated Organics other than Solvents; Halogenated organic compounds other than solvent
wastes; pesticides are the major component of this waste category.
s: Wastes containing significant levels of metals, and organic and inorganic metal
compounds.
Corrosives: All acidic and basic corrosive wastes such as acids and bases.
Cyanides and Other Reactives: Wastes with cyanide constituents, including complexes and organic
and inorganic cyanides; sulfides; explosives; water reactives; and strong oxidizers and reductants.
— 55 —
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
Figure 2-8
Major Recycling Practices for
Selected Waste Streams from
the RIA TSDF Survey
Non-Solvent Halogenated Organics
67%
33%
48%
All Wastes
22%
24%
Cyanides and Other
React ives
35%
47%
6%
12%
Corrosives
Metals
Solvents
37%
31%
11%
39%
14%
43%
52%
13%
29%
0 Feedstock
D Fuel
Supplement
• Disposal
CD Reclaimed
Source: Waste Treatment Branch, July 8, 1985, National Profiles Report for Recycling: A Preliminary
Assessment, Draft, USEPA, Washington, D.C.
— 56 —
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
use other onsite recycling technologies for managing of these wastes, including use as a
feedstock, disposal,21 and reclamation.
Currently, only the burning of hazardous wastes in incinerators is subject to regulation
under RCRA, though burning hazardous waste in boilers and industrial furnaces can also
pose a hazard to human health and the environment. EPA's definition of recycling, does
specifically address burning, and indicates that burning of hazardous wastes for energy
recovery is a hazardous waste recycling activity.22
Other recycling technologies: Wastes that have a higher constituent concentration
are usually selected for recovery and reclamation. Data suggest that there are threshold
levels for those wastes that must be reached before they can be considered eligible for the
recycling process. Halogenated solvent and nonsolvent wastes must be, on average, in the
range of 35 to 40 percent before recovery or reuse technologies are practical.23 For other
wastes, such as nonhalogenated solvents and corrosives, the threshold levels are lower for
recovery or reuse practices. In any case', the average concentration level for the material
being recovered using reclamation technologies is higher than that for any of the other
^ i
Disposal refers to recycling by placement on the land. For example, a waste used as a fertilizer or
soil stabilizer.
22 For EPA regulations that do concern burning see: 40 CFR 260.10 which defines a "boiler",
"incinerator," and "industrial furnace"; also 40 CFR 261.6 and 40 CFR 266 (Subpart D) which
address the burning of hazardous wastes for energy recovery in boilers and in industrial furnaces.
To fit the definition of "boiler," devices must maintain a minimum amount of thermal energy
recovery (60 percent). Of the 60 percent, 75 percent must be applied usefully and beneficially.
The definition of "industrial furnace" also requires the recovery of materials or energy. If a
controlled thermal combustion device meets neither of these criteria, it is defined as an
"incinerator" by EPA and requires a permit under Subpart O of the RCRA regulations. In this
report, references to such burning activities may in some instances include situations in which less
than 60 percent energy recovery is achieved. We have assumed, however, that future instances of
burning for energy recovery will meet the requirement stated in the EPA regulations.
Currently, hazardous waste storage at existing boilers and industrial furnaces are subject only to
interim status standards under Part 265. Regulation of the actual burning practices of boilers and
industrial furnaces has been deferred pending Agency activities to determine whether regulations for
burning in these devices should differ from those for incinerators in light of the scope, practices,
and different combustion devices and wastes involved.
*y\
Waste Minimization Issues and Options, Volume I, USEPA, Office of Solid Waste, Washington,
D.C., October 1986.
— 57 —
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
management practices (such as onsite wastewater treatment, surface impoundments,
wastewater discharge, land disposal, and treatment of organics).24
A number of other typical characteristics are common to waste streams that are
recycled. To be economically and technically viable for recycling, a stream usually must be
uniform, i.e., it must not contain more than one contaminant. Other factors that must be
met in order for recycling to be successful include:
• A market for the recycled material must exist within an economically
viable distance; and
• The recycled waste must meet purity requirements for manufacturing
processes.
Because recyclable wastes must be economically competitive with virgin material
they are replacing, the wastes often must be processed prior to reuse. Reclamation
processes include chemical, physical, and electrochemical separation. Some of the major
technologies include the following:
• Distillation of solvent wastes;
• Dechlorination of halogenated, nonsolvent wastes; and
• Metal concentrating techniques such as leaching, solvent extraction,
ion exchange, precipitation, crystallization, and evaporation to treat
dilute metal-bearing waste streams.
While not as common as onsite recycling, commercial offsite recycling is becoming
increasingly popular. It is, in fact, favored by some industries, most notably primary
metals and small quantity generators of lead-acid battery wastes. Offsite recycling usually
occurs at mobile plants, centralized recovery facilities, or other commercial recycling
plants. An increasingly popular commercial recycling service called batch tolling accepts
hazardous wastes from a generator only for treatment and return of the recovered product to
the same generator for reuse. The recycler charges a fee to the generator for recovery of
the reclaimed material. Some small volume generators have actually pooled their resources
24 Ibid., pp. 4-16 to 4-22.
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
and now operate centralized recycling facilities, thereby reducing their capital and operating
costs.25
Certain wastes that are not useful to a generator may be desired by another industry
as a raw material. Waste exchanges are often helpful in facilitating the transfer and
recycling of these wastes. They serve as information clearinghouses (listing wastes that
are available or desired), and can also act as brokers; occasionally they actually transport
wastes from one plant to another. Available information suggests that approximately 20 to
30 percent of all wastes listed by exchanges are eventually recycled. Some of the wastes
that are most often recycled include acids, alkalis, solvents, metal wastes, and corrosives.
Activities of the States in Support of Waste Minimization
Section 1003(a)(7) of RCRA directs the EPA to establish a "viable Federal-State
partnership to carry out the purposes of this Act" and "give a high priority to assisting and
cooperating with the States in obtaining full authorization of State programs under Subtitle
C." This directive reflects the intent of the Congress that the States bear final
implementation responsibility for their hazardous waste programs. This approach
recognizes that the State hazardous waste programs are located closest to the communities
that are most significantly affected by hazardous waste problems. The States are,
therefore, the most appropriate level of government to take the initiative to develop and
implement their own hazardous waste management program.
Under RCRA, EPA implements the hazardous waste activities until States are given
authority to do so. EPA's management of the national hazardous waste system attempts to
strike a balance between the need for a uniform national system and the wide-ranging
diversity of States' hazardous waste priorities. Differing priorities affect differences in the
magnitude of States' hazardous waste problems, economic priorities, and financial and
institutional commitment to regulating hazardous waste. The limited extent of some States'
development of waste minimization programs may also reflect State decisions to spend
more time implementing HSWA and the base RCRA program. The evidence suggests,
25
Ibid.
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
however, that many State officials support the hazardous waste programs since there is
sufficient political support for their efforts.
State officials' perceptions of State commitment: Many State hazardous waste
program officials believe that they currently enjoy sufficient political support for their
regulatory activities. Interviews of State hazardous waste program officials conducted in
1985 during the initial implementation of HSWA revealed that among 26 environmental
officials from 22 States, two-thirds believed that they enjoyed sufficient political support.26
In addition to being informative, these interviews provided indications of how State
program officials tend to assess the commitment of the State to support hazardous waste
regulation. Officials assessed commitment to regulation in the following ways:
• Adequacy of financial and administrative resources to carry out the
hazardous waste program activities;
• Adequacy of executive branch support most often displayed in terms
of the degree of priority in the Governor's operating budget;
• Adequacy of statutory authority granted to the regulatory agency by
the State legislature; and
• Adequacy of public support for the activities of the State program.
For example, officials representing 17 State programs indicated that their
legislatures had provided adequate statutory authority to run a viable hazardous waste
program. Moreover, 14 State officials asserted that their programs had adequate executive
branch support to implement their program activities, although they recognized that
availability of financial resources would be a continuing source of concern, which generally
extends to States' needs for funding to support waste minimization.
Substantive State progress toward waste minimization: There are several types of
activities by which States encourage waste minimization. The mix of waste minimization
activities adopted by States varies as does the size of waste minimization programs.
Individual strategies include:
Perceptions of Progress: Initial Reactions to HSWA, Hazardous Waste Management Project,
USEPA, Office of Solid Waste, Washington, D.C., June 1, 1985.
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
• Regulatory exemptions if waste materials are recycled;
• Land disposal restrictions for certain waste materials and
management practices;
• Fee and tax incentive programs, as well as financial assistance in the
form of loan, bond, and grant assistance programs; and
• Information programs such as information transfer, technical
assistance, and waste exchanges.27
Table 2-5 indicates the types of activities that individual States have undertaken to
expedite waste minimization. In sum, seven States have instituted recycling exemptions or
variances and land disposal restrictions. Twenty States have instituted at least one type of
fee or tax incentive program. Nineteen States have initiated at least one of the three types of
information programs.
Hazardous waste regulatory programs in most States are modeled after the Federal
RCRA program. Waste minimization practices are encouraged by State regulations through
exemptions from, or relaxation of, otherwise applicable regulatory requirements. A
recycling unit does not require a TSD permit under the Federal regulations. Shipping of
hazardous wastes offsite for recycling requires a manifest, and storing wastes for longer
than 90 days, even if wastes are to be recycled, requires a permit. For most States,
exemptions from recycling practices are the same as Federal requirements. For example,
Wisconsin's regulations provide "exemptions" from licensing of a treatment facility for
legitimate reclamation or recovery of hazardous wastes, beneficial use or reuse, energy
recovery, or other innovative recycling activities.28 Beyond existing Federal requirements,
in California, generators of wastes deemed recyclable must recycle those wastes or must by
request of the State regulatory agency provide written justification for not recycling them.
Such justification must provide a summary of efforts made to find a use for the waste and
technological and economic reasons for not recycling the waste.29
27 Waste Minimization Issues and Options, Vols. 1 - 3, USEPA, Office of Solid Waste,
Washington, D.C., October 1986; see also Appendix A of this Report, "Technical and Financial
Assistance Programs."
28 Ibid., pp. 7-23.
29 Article 12, Sections 66763 and 66796, California Hazardous Waste Control Act.
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
EXEMPTIONS
&
RESTRICTIONS
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FEE AND TAX
INCENTIVES
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PROGRAMS
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TABLE 2-5 SUMMARY OF STATES' WASTE MINIMIZATION ACTIVITIES
— 62 —
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
Waste minimization practices are also encouraged through State disposal
restrictions, some of which may be more stringent than those of EPA. Such restrictions
may include (1) bans on certain waste materials and types of management; (2) facility
standards (such as liner requirements and ground-water monitoring); and (3) requirements
for receipt of specific approval from a regulatory agency prior to disposal of a particular
waste stream. Kansas, Illinois, and New York are examples of States that prohibited the
land disposal of various solvents, dioxins, and other hazardous organics before the Federal
regulations called for restrictions of the substances in 1984.30 California established the
first State land disposal restriction program in late 1981. The program banned specific
wastes from land disposal. The schedule of bans is contingent upon a determination by the
California Department of Health Services (DHS) that sufficient recycling and treatment
capacity for the specified wastes will be permitted and fully operational by the day the land
disposal restrictions take effect.31
State financial incentives to encourage preferred waste management alternatives
include (1) permit fees assessed on operators of TSD facilities; (2) taxes assessed on the
waste volume of generators or disposers (e.g., waste end taxes); and (3) taxes on the raw
materials used by generators of hazardous waste (feedstock taxes). Waste fees and taxes
serve not only to generate revenue for various purposes, but are intended to provide
incentives for waste minimization. Currently, no States directly tax the manufacture of
hazardous substance feedstocks, although four States—Maine, Florida, New Hampshire,
and New Jersey—impose a tax on the transfer of petroleum and chemical feedstocks.32 In
1984, 20 States imposed waste end taxes on hazardous waste generators.
State-provided credit assistance, whether through direct State loans, guaranteed
loans, subsidized interest payments for private loans, or bond financing, is a means of
^ Waste Minimization Issues and Options, Vol. 1 , USEPA, Office of Solid Waste, Washington,
D.C. , October 1986, p. 7-25.
The scheduled dates were (1) June 1, 1983, banning of wastes containing free cyanides; (2) January
1, 1984, banning of toxic metal wastes and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs); (3) January 1,
1985, banning of liquid wastes containing halogenated organic compounds; and (4) July 1987,
banning of organic sludges, solids containing halogenated organic compounds, and lab packs
containing any of the restricted wastes.
32 Office of Solid Waste, op. cit., p. 7-36.
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
reducing the cost to firms of obtaining capital to make an investment toward the purchase of
waste reduction equipment or to build and operate waste recycling facilities. Although no
States have actually established a loan guarantee program, California currently subsidizes
interest rates for the purchase of waste reducing equipment. California, Illinois,
Minnesota, and New York provide credit assistance in the form of direct loans for pollution
control equipment, which generally include recycling or source reduction investments.
Revenue bond financing is used by several State programs to assist firms with the purchase
and installation of pollution control equipment. For example, the Missouri Environmental
Improvement and Energy Resources Authority (EIERA) has operated a successful bond
program for over a decade to provide over $1.5 billion in financing for energy development
and pollution prevention projects.33
Waste minimization grants are monies awarded to hazardous waste generators,
processing facilities, and other public and private organizations to support waste
minimization efforts, including research and development activities and demonstrations of
recycling and source reduction technology. State grants are a direct method for
investigating new and existing technologies. For example, North Carolina's challenge
grants program provides matching funds of up to $5,000 to stimulate a generator's
investigation of source reduction and recycling on a plant-specific basis; this program is
aimed especially at small to medium-sized generators. California, Georgia, Illinois,
Minnesota, and Wisconsin also offer grants for projects involving research, development,
and demonstrations of source reduction and recycling technology.34
Technical and informational assistance at its most basic level consists of
development of a library collection of technical information which generators can review to
discover technologies that should be useful for minimizing their wastes or locating waste
exchanges.3^. North Carolina's technical information collection, maintained as pan of the
"Pollution Prevention Pays" (PPP) program, offers an information clearinghouse with
33 Ibid.
34 Ibid.
Waste exchanges, a type of information program, provide a means for matching the need for waste
with the availability of that waste: i.e., companies can use the service to advertise available wastes
or to find waste materials they can use.
.64 —
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
1,200 references on waste minimization methods, organized by SIC code. Numerous
publications are also available through the PPP, such as the Handbook of Environmental
Auditing and a directory of recycling firms located within the State. To facilitate the
exchange of wastes among generators, the California Waste Exchange, like other waste
exchanges throughout the country, issues a quarterly newsletter that contains listings on
available or desirable wastes. The program also issues a Directory of Industry Recyclers,
which lists names and locations of recycling companies and the types of materials they
recycle. New York's Industrial Materials Recycling Program, operated through the State's
Environmental Facilities Corporation (EEC), publishes informational newsletters, technical
papers, and a directory of permitted hazardous waste transporters.
Some State technical assistance programs include direct efforts to help individual
generators as well as general efforts to educate important industry groups. Most of the
direct assistance to individual generators is provided by telephone, followed by distribution
of appropriate written information. The technical assistance staffs in several State
programs also provide onsite audits and reviews of particular plant sites. Minnesota's
technical assistance program provides plants with engineering students who work directly
in the plant during the summer to assist in assessing the needs and opportunities for waste
minimization and in planning for them.
Review of Existing EPA Activities Relating to Waste Minimization
Consistent with HSWA objectives to foster waste minimization practices by
encouraging process substitution, materials recovery, and properly conducted recycling and
reuse wherever possible, and to implement RCRA through the States, the Office of Solid
Waste (OSW) has, over the past two years, attempted to design an efficient
intergovernmental division of labor among EPA Headquarters, the EPA Regional Offices,
and the State hazardous waste programs. EPA Headquarters and the Regional Offices are
taking a leading role in support of the Federal-State partnership by conducting three
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
essential functions: regulatory control; technical and financial assistance; and information
sharing and management. Each of these is discussed below.
Regulatory Control
EPA has implemented the following waste minimization provisions of HSWA:
Transport manifest certification statement: Effective September 1, 1985, HSWA
Section 3002 (b) requires that generators certify that they have a program in place to reduce
the volume or quantity and toxicity of hazardous waste to the degree determined by the
generator to be economically practicable. Further, the proposed method of treatment,
storage, and disposal employed to treat hazardous waste is that practicable method currently
available to the generator which minimizes present and future threats to human health and
the environment. Based on EPA's analysis of HSWA's legislative history, the Agency
does not believe that it has the authority to dictate the content of these certifications.
Onsite permit condition requirement: Effective September 1,1985, HSWA Section
3005 (h) requires that, for any permit issued under this section for the treatment, storage,
or disposal of hazardous waste on the premises where the waste was generated, generators
certify annually that they have a program in place to reduce the volume or quantity and
toxicity of hazardous waste to the degree determined by the generator to be economically
practicable. Furthermore, the proposed method of treatment, storage, or disposal is that
practicable method currendy available to the generator which minimizes present and future
threats to human health and the environment.^
Inclusion of reporting requirements on Biennial Reports: Generators must include
in their biennial reports a narrative statement regarding efforts undertaken to reduce the
volume and toxicity of waste generated, along with a description of the changes in the
volumes and toxicity of waste actually achieved during the year in comparison to previous
years, to the extent such information is available for years prior to 1984. EPA is currently
conducting a study to ascertain how the biennial reporting requirements might best achieve
a consistency of data collection that enhances the future utility of these reports.
36 50 FR 28734, July 15, 1985
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
Monitoring of compliance with the certification signatory requirement: Following
the HSWA change to the transporter manifest, EPA's enforcement responsibility has been
concerned with generator compliance with the signatory requirement. The amendment to
the transporter manifests, as interpreted by the Codification Rule, limits EPA to enforcing
compliance with the certification and signatory requirements. As stated below in the
Federal Register (50 FR 28734), EPA does not believe that this requirement provides
authority to intrude into industrial production process decisions.
The amendment does not authorize EPA to interfere with or to intrude into the
production process by requiring standards for waste minimization; rather, it
specifically provides that the substantive "determinations" of "economically
practicable," and "practicable methods currently available" are to be made by the
generator in light of his own particular circumstances. Thus, from an
enforcement perspective, the Agency will be concerned primarily with
compliance with the certification signatory requirement. Each generator subject
to the waste minimization requirement should make a good faith effort to
minimize the amount and toxicity of waste generated and to select a means of
treatment, storage, or disposal most likely to minimize the present and future
threat to human health and the. environment.37
Responses to specific inquiries from generators: Although EPA is not authorized
through the waste minimization certification to interfere with or intrude into the generator's
production process, each generator subject to the waste minimization requirement may seek
EPA clarification on waste minimization practices by letter to the Agency (see Appendix E
for copies of relevant correspondence).
Development of an Environmental Auditing Policy Statement. The Agency has
adopted a policy with respect to environmental auditing which seeks to strengthen
compliance with environmental regulations and to improve management controls by
supporting conventional Federal, State, and local government oversight. This policy
encourages regulated parties to conduct comprehensive audits to document how well
environmental practices are established. One of the values of a comprehensive audit may
be in the discovery of other previously unknown and unregulated risks in the management
of a generator's waste. Such an audit could help a generator identify other waste
minimization opportunities. For example, environmental audits may evaluate the extent to
37 50 FR 28734, July 15, 1985
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
which hazardous waste management systems exploit source reduction, recycling, or reuse
of wastes wherever practical, or "substitute materials or processes to allow use of the least
hazardous substances feasible."38
Technical and Financial Assistance
In the area of technical and financial assistance, EPA's role has been principally one
of providing financial support through a number of EPA programs to promising State
waste minimization efforts. It also provides research support for developing technologies
that might facilitate waste minimization by selected industries. A limited amount of
financing has been used to encourage States to continue with or to develop their own
programs.
The Office of Solid Waste provides technical and financial assistance to States
through State grants. The short-term strategy of the Office of Solid Waste to implement
HSWA recognizes that "EPA must make better use of interest groups, trade associations,
the Regions and the States in explaining regulations requirements,...where compliance with
regulations is technically complex,... EPA and the States should make plans for providing
adequate technical assistance and technology transfer."39 Moreover, the draft strategy
emphasizes that: "One area of need for technical assistance is educating small business on
techniques for minimizing waste."
Congress has allocated $4.75 million in supplemental grant funding to the EPA
Regional Offices for State and local government hazardous waste management activities.
Distributed according to each Region's proportional share of the total Fiscal Year 1986
RCRA base State grants, the supplemental monies may support:
• Activities related to State or local government development of
innovative waste management activities that will reduce dependency
on land disposal; and
38 51 FR 25010, July 9, 1986
39 Draft: Hazardous Waste Management Strategy Office of Solid Waste., USEPA, Office of Solid
Waste, Washington, D.C., April 1986.
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
• Activities related to State or local government hazardous waste
management efforts that accelerate issuance of permits to new or
expanding hazardous waste management facilities.
Grants will be awarded and managed by the Regional Offices and are to be awarded
with a 10 percent matching requirement, which grantees may fulfill with cash or in-kind
services.
Eligible activities include:
Conducting outreach or education activities in support of EPA Small
Business Initiatives and increased Small Quantity Generator
compliance with HSWA;
Implementing a local or Regional collection, transfer, and transport
system to handle Small Quantity Generator waste;
• Analyzing generator waste streams for evaluation of onsite treatment
potential toward reduction of volume or toxicity of waste or potential
for reuse or recycling;
Analyzing generator processes for potential volume or toxicity
reductions; and
• Conducting analysis of waste streams in a particular industry,
geographical area, or demographic context for potential development
and actual establishment of a waste exchange program.
The Office of Research and Development's Small Business/Small Quantity
Generators' Research Program provides financial support for research and information
activities of agencies or associations working with small businesses. Funding sources
include the following:
Funding is partially provided to the Governmental Refuse Collection
and Disposal Association clearinghouses for information on waste
management options in association with State agencies and industry
groups. Federal support for this project will be available for two
years, after which the program will be self-supporting.
Continued support is provided to State technical assistance and
educational programs for applied research on waste minimization
that can be implemented by other State programs. Funding is
currently provided to North Carolina and Minnesota.
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
The Office of Research and Development also supports research and development
of recycling technology and clean manufacturing processes at the Industrial Waste
Elimination Research Center at the Illinois Institute of Technology.
Other Office of Research and Development activities providing research and
technical support include the following activities:
• The regional support services (RSS) staff serves as a clearinghouse
for the Regions and the States by fielding requests for technical
information or technology transfer that cut across media or
disciplines within the EPA. It provides assistance to the States by
fulfilling requests that require development of new information or
integration of unpublished information toward resolution of new
problems, and supporting the waste minimization activities of the
States through cooperative agreements with the State-focused
associations, such as the National Governor's Association (NGA).
• The Hazardous Waste Environmental Research Laboratory
(HWERL) is undertaking research on waste reduction and recycling
technologies. HWERL recently studied waste minimization
practices of the printed circuit board industry and is currently
conducting eight waste minimization audits.
• The Office of Research and Development (ORD) administered
funding for applied research recently conducted for OSW in
cooperation with the Tufts University. The Tufts Center for
Environmental Management conducted a foreign practices study
which profiles current waste minimization activities in Canada,
Japan, and Western Europe.
Information Sharing and Management
EPA can draw upon several existing sources of information in order to further the
dissemination and sharing of knowledge about hazardous waste generation and waste
minimization policy among EPA, States, other Federal agencies, and industry.
Mechanisms for information sharing include conferences, workshops, biennial reports of
the waste generators, survey data bases, and census data.
Following the success of the 1985 conference entitled "Waste Reduction—the
Untold Story" at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, at which representatives of 22 large
companies discussed their waste minimization activities, EPA sponsored a second waste
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
minimization conference entitled "Waste Reduction—the Continuing Saga" on June 4-6,
1986. Assistance was provided by Tufts University. The program was expanded to
include waste minimization activities by small and medium-sized generators.
During 1986, EPA co-sponsored and assisted in coordination of the third workshop
for State Waste Reduction Programs under the leadership of the North Carolina Pollution
Prevention Pays Program. These semiannual workshops provide a forum for the exchange
of current information and resources to further State efforts in waste minimization.
Approximately 20 to 30 State programs are represented at each meeting.
During 1986, the staff of the Office of Solid Waste and the Office of Policy,
Planning, and Evaluation conducted presentations on waste minimization at the following
events:
• Hazardous Materials Conference in Atlantic City, New Jersey;
• Annual Meeting of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers in
Chicago;
"Alternative Technologies to Hazardous Waste Management," a
conference sponsored by the Engineering Foundation;
Government Institute course on Hazardous and Solid Waste
Minimization;
• Pollution Prevention Pays: the Tennessee Approach;
• The Air Force Logistical Command First Annual Hazardous Waste
Minimization Conference; and
• A meeting of the American Wood Preserver's Institute.
EPA provides support to the Environmental Audit Roundtable, which focuses on
the activities of industry. Quarterly meetings are held in Washington, D.C., to address
topics such as waste audits and offsite waste reduction activities. To encourage
environmental audits by Federal facilities, EPA has provided initial coordination and
support for a Department of Defense/EPA Memorandum of Understanding, which is
currently under discussion. EPA's special purpose mailing list on Environmental Auditing
includes over 900 names; most Fortune 500 companies are represented on this list, as are
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
over 100 Federal facilities. By August 1986, EPA had also issued over 2,000 copies of the
general policy statement on Environmental Auditing. Several EPA offices are currently
reviewing a draft Federal facility compliance strategy by EPA's Office of Federal Activities
that encourages environmental auditing. Environmental audits and waste minimization
programs are encouraged and co-sponsored by the Office of Enforcement and Compliance
Monitoring and the Office of Federal Activities at the regular meetings of the Federal
Facility Environmental Managers
Generators and treatment, storage, and disposal facilities (TSDFs) are required to
report waste generation and disposal information on a biennial basis to EPA. The
information assists the Agency in its evaluation of the volume, type, and disposal and
treatment of waste generated by industry in the country. The Agency is studying the data
from the reports and may eventually revise the biennial report in order to include more
detailed information on waste minimization efforts by generating facilities.
-Several existing data bases provide a current picture of the Nation's waste
generation. As noted in the first section of this chapter, the information comes from
surveys of large and small quantity generators and from industrial data bases. Two of the
most comprehensive data bases are the RIA Mail Survey and the National Small Quantity
Generator Survey. Although the data from the RIA Mail Survey are now over five years
old, the survey has provided useful information on how individual facilities are handling
the waste they generate. The more recent (1985) Small Quantity Generators' survey
provides information similar to the RIA Mail Survey on the activities of the small generator.
The Industrial Studies Data Base (ISDB) has been developed from questionnaires sent to
industries under Section 3007 of RCRA. It contains information from 12 different
industrial categories. The ISDB differs from the other surveys in that it contains
information on the various processes within each of the industrial categories surveyed.
Despite some limitations (e.g., the age of the data, reporting errors), these data bases have
been extremely helpful in the assessment of current waste generation and treatment/disposal
activities. If they are continuously updated, the surveys and industrial data could be
accurate measures of the trends in waste generation and treatment by industry.
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
Census data provide another valuable source of information. Although the Bureau
of Census does not collect information on waste generation by industry, the Census does
provide useful economic data as well as information on the number of establishments, plant
size, production, raw material consumption, revenue, and regional location. Economic and
industry-specific knowledge, when combined with other data sources described above, can
extend the knowledge base that EPA and other Federal and State agencies need to make
informed policy decisions about future waste minimization efforts.
Additional authority for the development of useful information in furthering waste
minimization objectives may be forthcoming under CERCLA reauthorization. The
proposed bill contains a new act which requires fairly comprehensive inventories of all
"hazardous chemicals." The new act builds upon reporting requirements that already exist
under OSHA regulations for Material Safety Data Sheets. This act will also expand the list
of substances subject to emergency notification and require the development of a new list of
toxic chemicals that will be subjected to reporting requirements. This bill will be in
addition to the provisions of the current CERCLA legislation that requires reporting in
Section 103(a)(14) only for specifically listed "hazardous substances." The act will require
information with respect to each toxic chemical at a facility subject to the requirement,
concerning:
• The general use of the toxic chemical;
• An estimate of the maximum amount of the toxic chemical present at
the facility at any time during the preceding year,
• For each waste stream, the treatment and disposal methods used and
the efficiency of treatment; and
• Annual quantity of toxic chemical entering each environmental
medium.
In sum, these mechanisms afford a significant basis upon which to develop a
comprehensive overview of the use, movement, and fate of all chemicals and wastes of
concern and to determine the changes resulting from altered economic and regulatory
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
conditions. A suggested strategy for collecting the necessary data is described in
Chapter 4.
Other EPA Activities Potentially Relevant to Waste Minimization
EPA currently is developing a variety of regulatory and analytic mechanisms in
response to existing environmental legislation. This section reviews some existing EPA
activities that could be redirected and integrated into the core of the hazardous waste
minimization program at a later date.
Examination of RCRA program permit process: The Permit Process and Regional
State Operations Workgroup of the Office of Solid Waste, Hazardous Waste
Implementation Task Force, has recently completed its examination of the RCRA permit
program to identify significant program problems and weaknesses and to develop
recommendations for improving the program's structure, substance, and management. The
workgroup's draft report recognizes that the time and expense involved in getting a final
RCRA permit can delay the development of new waste treatment capacity. While many
aspects of the HSWA have created strong incentives for waste minimization, some aspects
of the new requirements related to permit procedures for onsite treatment, storage, or
disposal are perceived by generators to inhibit waste minimization but are in fact designed
to inhibit only unsafe waste minimization.
Suggested potential solutions include:
• Acceleration of the permit process for facilities with regard to the
addition of new disposal or treatment capacity;
• Publication of treatment standards that focus on the treated material
(to ensure that it is no longer hazardous) rather than the treatment
technique, per se; and
• Continued EPA work group examination of the issues concerning
onsite recycling and hazardous waste treatment such as the issuance
of waste generation permits.40
Draft Final Report, Hazardous Waste Implementation Task Force Permit Process Workgroup,
USEPA, Office of Solid Waste, Permits and State Programs Division, Washington , D.C., March
14, 1986.
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
National survey of commercial hazardous waste treatment, storage, and disposal
facilities: During 1986-87, the Office of Solid Waste plans to conduct a survey of
hazardous waste facilities in which questionnaires will be sent to a sample of commercial
and private facilities that store, treat, recycle, or dispose of hazardous wastes. One major
objective of the survey is to develop a categorization of the types of treatment and recycling
practices that hazardous waste facilities use based on a facility's capacity and operating
costs. The questionnaire is designed to elicit information on specific types of treatment and
recycling practices, for example, solvent recovery systems including fractionation, batch
still distillation, solvent extraction, and thin film evaporation.
Foreign practices study on hazardous waste minimization: Completed in July 1986,
this study was conducted by of the Center for Environmental Management at Tufts
University and funded by a grant from EPA.41 To supplement this report to Congress on
the feasibility of Federal initiatives in waste minimization, the foreign practices study
examined activities in Japan, Canada, the Federal Republic of Germany, the Netherlands,
Denmark, and Sweden. The study focused on government laws and programs affecting
waste minimization as well as the efforts of four industry sectors: organic and inorganic
chemicals, textiles, electroplating, and electronics.
The study found that most of the countries rely on a two-tier governmental
approach to advance waste minimization. Standards and pollution control policies are
developed at the Federal level. The regional government (State, province, or prefecture)
administers the cooperative managerial aspects of the waste minimization program.
Central to most of the countries is a fairly aggressive role on the pan of government
to working cooperatively with industry in improving waste minimization. In all countries,
industrial managers and government officials most commonly credited economic or market
forces with driving waste minimization. Corporate public image is often noted as an
important motivator. The cooperative relationship between industry and government means
that the government agencies are frequently less regulatory in their approach to waste
Foreign Practices in Hazardous Waste Minimization, USEPA, Office of Solid Waste, Washington,
D.C., June 4, 1986.
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
reduction. Industry managers are also more likely to anticipate environmental protection
issues and comply with plans as developed.
In all countries surveyed, there are public programs and guidelines for the
encouragement and installation of waste reduction, recycling, waste exchange, and
installation of low pollution technologies. However, none of the countries directly
mandates any form of waste minimization or establishes performance standards. Viewed in
terms of generic categories, all countries use some combination of the following policy
options. Tax and economic incentives are frequently used together, as are technical
assistance and research and development assistance. Most countries have some kind of
waste exchange in operation. Plans and permits are less frequently used but are important
where they are employed. Some topics that are frequently discussed in the U.S., such as
the influence of tort liability and the feasibility of performance standards, are rarely
considered in the six countries. Similarities which these countries do share with the U.S.,
however, relate to difficulties associated with the evaluation of program effectiveness.
There are no comprehensive data collection systems. No detailed information is collected
on a systematic basis concerning waste per unit product generation rates, or the degree to
which industries or firms conform with suggested waste minimization guidelines or
procedures.
In Europe, much of the impetus for waste management comes from the efforts of
the European Economic Community, which has frequently characterized waste
minimization as a goal of member countries. The Third Environmental Action Program of
1981 emphasized the inclusion of environmental protection into all aspects of economic and
social development. The program directed that the greatest emphasis be placed on
prevention of waste generation, on designing products to facilitate recycling, and on waste
management that progressively substitutes reuse for disposal.
Computerized hazardous waste management model: EPA's Regulatory Integration
Division has developed an automated hazardous waste management model that may prove
useful in State planning efforts for waste minimization. This model was developed to
assess the risks inherent in current hazardous waste management practices and to evaluate
potential changes in risk resulting from alternative waste management strategies. New
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
England was selected as the first region for development of this tool. The current model
integrates information on waste volumes and types, transportation routes, waste
management facilities, exposure probabilities, and health effects.
Effluent guidelines revisions to encourage recycling: In keeping with the mandate
to clean and protect the Nation's water, EPA's Office of Water (OW) is reviewing effluent
limitations on wastewater discharges from various pollutants in specific industrial
categories under the authority of the Clean Water Act. In making these determinations, OW
evaluates various technical alternatives in terms of their environmental impacts and technical
feasibility. Included within these assessments are process modifications that reduce water
use, minimize wastewater generation, and substitute chemicals to reduce pollutant
concentrations in wastewater.
Also included in the OW assessments is the impact on possible intermedia pollution
shifts associated with effluent guideline compliance. In particular, OW's Industrial
Technology Division is conducting a study to identify intermedia effects associated with
discharges of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). In some cases, technologies to treat the
effluent may transfer the problem of contamination by hazardous constituents to other
media, such as air or solid waste. In the case of VOCs, OW is coordinating with the Office
of Air and the Office of Solid Waste in an attempt to adopt a standard that minimizes the
tradeoffs between water effluent and air and solid waste.
United Nations Economic Commission for Europe: EPA participates in
international efforts to minimize wastes produced by industry. The United Nations
Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) currently provides a compendium of low and
non-waste technology to serve as a means of promoting process technology changes that
eliminate or reduce wastes, energy usage, or natural resource usage. The EPA has
supported this effort by contributing five descriptions to the compendium and assisting the
UNECE staff with other information as needed
Use of Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) for waste minimization: TSCA,
which took effect January 1, 1977, charged EPA with protecting human health and the
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
environment from unreasonable risks of injury from toxic chemicals. There are three
general sections of TSCA that could be used to support various waste minimization needs.
To support information gathering, TSCA Section 8 authorizes EPA to require
reporting and recordkeeping by industry on chemical substances and mixtures.
Specifically, Section 8(a) provides authority for EPA to promulgate rules that industry must
follow in order to maintain records and report certain production, use, and exposure related
information to the Agency. Such information could be collected through the recently
proposed Comprehensive Assessment Information Rule (CAIR), for example, which
improves the data gathering procedures for providing information on existing chemicals or
via the development of other chemical specific TSCA Section 8(a) rules.
To regulate the introduction or importation of new chemical substances, TSCA
Section 5(a) requires EPA to review new chemical substances prior to their manufacture.
Manufacturers are required to provide EPA with a premanufacturing notification (PMN) 90
days before beginning manufacture for any chemical substance not included on the TSCA
Chemical Substances Inventory. EPA reviews and evaluates the potential risk posed by the
new substance and determines whether controls are appropriate, whether additional data are
needed, or whether production should be prohibited. The Office of Toxic Substances and
OSW are conducting a review of how to use the PMN program as an incentive to
incorporate waste minimization techniques in the production of new chemical substances.
EPA is currently planning to prepare a New Chemical Information Bulletin that would
provide guidance to submitters of PMNs by stating that EPA will consider waste
minimization practices in its review of relative risks of new chemical substances.
TSCA Section 6 could be used to limit the disposal of certain types of hazardous
wastes through specification of those chemicals that cannot be disposed of and by
encouraging generators to undertake treatments other than land disposal. TSCA
Section(6)(a) authorizes the Administrator to develop regulations to prohibit disposal of a
substance or mixture by its manufacturer or processor. While EPA does not usually
impose chemical-specific treatment, storage, or disposal methods for a particular waste
under TSCA, it can limit the number of options that are available and by doing so, pressure
a generator into using preferable treatment methods.
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Existing Waste Minimization Activities
TSCA Section 6(b) may also provide some control. Section 6(b) states that if the
Administrator has a reasonable basis to conclude that a particular manufacturer or processor
is manufacturing or processing a chemical substance or mixture in a manner that
unintentionally causes the chemical substance or mixture to present or which will cause it to
present an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment, the Administrator may
(1) require the manufacturer or processor to submit a description of the relevant quality
control procedures followed and (2) if the quality control procedures are inadequate,
require the manufacturer or processor to revise such quality control procedures to the extent
necessary to remedy such inadequacy. This second provision may be more difficult to
implement but could conceivably impose on a manufacturer requirements that ultimately
minimize waste.
Determining whether a particular risk is "unreasonable," however, is very difficult.
Under TSCA, EPA must take into account the hazard presented, the magnitude of human
and environmental exposure, and the benefits and economic consequences of the proposed
regulations. If it is found that the impact on the economy from regulatory control
outweighs the risk of harm to human health and the environment, EPA will not find the risk
unreasonable. It might therefore be necessary to consider control alternatives under other
statutory authorities.
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Chapter Three
EVALUATION OF WASTE MINIMIZATION OPTIONS
Many options are potentially available for use as part of an EPA waste minimization
program. Congress has directed the Agency in HSWA to address specifically three
categories of actions:
• S tandards of performance
• Changes to RCRA, including
— Modifications to Section 3002 Generator Standards
— Modifications to Section 3005 Permit Standards
• Management practices
In addition, the Agency has identified a variety of other approaches to waste minimization,
some of which would require new statutory authority, and some of which could be
implemented on the basis of existing Agency authority.
The purpose of this chapter is to present and evaluate these options. The first
section below describes the criteria used by EPA to make evaluations. The second section
presents an overview of the options themselves under four headings: Standards of
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Evaluation of Waste Minimization Options
Performance, Modifications to RCRA, Management Practices, and Other Available
Options. Detailed evaluations of the options are contained in Appendix A of this report.1
Criteria for Evaluating Waste Minimization Options
As Chapter Two discusses, the issues involved in designing waste minimization
programs are complex. As the many new provisions of HSWA are implemented,
particularly the land disposal restriction program, many critical aspects of the country's
hazardous waste regulatory environment will be in a state of flux. To meet HSWA's
deadlines and requirements, EPA is facing heavy internal demands on its time and staff
resources. Simultaneously, States are developing their own programs. In the private
sector, additional commercial treatment capacity must be installed, and large numbers of
firms and plants not previously regulated will now have to be issued, and comply with,
RCRA permits.
Waste minimization options must therefore be evaluated, not only in terms of their
effectiveness in minimizing waste, but also in terms of their feasibility of implementation.
Thus, in addition to effectiveness, the evaluation should consider the following.
• What the private sector costs and other impacts would be on
generators in light of their already existing need to accommodate the
many new requirements of HSWA ;
• What the internal impacts would be on EPA for each option, in
terms of new research requirements, additional regulatory
development burdens, and implementation and enforcement
burdens; and
• What burdens would be put on the States.
Waste Minimization Issues and Options , Office of Solid Waste, USEPA, Washington, D.C.,
October 1986. The Agency identified a number of options that are not discussed in this chapter.
These have been dropped from active consideration at this time for the various reasons described in
Appendix B of this report
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Evaluation of Waste Minimization Options
The criteria used to evaluate the options have therefore been put under three general
headings:
• Technical effectiveness: How well does the option meet the goals of
waste minimization?
• Impacts on industry: What will be the costs and other burdens of
compliance with each option?
• Implementation issues: How will this option be implemented, and
what will the burdens be on EPA and State resources?
Each of these areas is discussed separately below. As is evident from the detailed
discussions contained in Appendix A, the information necessary to answer many of these
questions properly is often unavailable.
Technical Effectiveness
The first consideration in evaluating any option is the degree to which it achieves
the objectives set by Congress for minimizing the volume or quantity and toxicity of wastes
generated, or which would otherwise be sent to land disposal.
Volume reduction: Volume reduction is of key concern for any waste minimization
option and will be particularly important in the short term, especially for those firms that
must rely on offsite commercial treatment facilities. While the overall goal of waste
minimization is to produce significant aggregate reductions in the total volume of hazardous
waste produced each year, it may often be important in the short term to direct minimization
efforts to those industries or waste streams for which treatment capacity is in shortest
supply. In assessing the effectiveness of a particular option in terms of potential for
reducing waste volume, pertinent questions include the following:
• What proportion of total national waste volume could it reduce?
• What proportion of the waste from the affected industries or waste
streams might be reduced?
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Evaluation of Waste Minimization Options
Toxicity reduction: The effectiveness of an option in achieving toxicity reduction
may be harder to estimate than its effectiveness in reducing waste volume, but the questions
involved are similar to those asked in regard to volume reduction:
• To what degree would the option tend to reduce the toxicity of a
particular waste stream?
• Would toxicity reduction interfere with volume reduction?
Other technical effectiveness issues: There may be additional criteria under this
heading that are important to some options and not others. This section will allow for
further detailed discussion of the option and will focus on issues such as the following.
• Side effects and intermedia transfers: Important technical
considerations in the evaluation of any option are the relationships
between volume reduction and toxicity reduction and the possibility
of unwanted transfers of pollution from one location or medium to
another. As pointed out in Chapter Two, for instance, volume
reduction may produce more concentrated and, therefore, possibly
more toxic, wastes. Conversely, toxicity reduction may involve
dilution of wastes, increasing their volume. Certain options may
appear to minimize waste effectively, but in fact may only be
transferring pollution to the air or water. Questions about such
concerns include:
— Will this option tend to produce undesirable side effects in terms
of the volume or toxicity of hazardous waste reduced?
— Will it produce adverse effects in environmental media other than
those affected by hazardous waste management?
• Transaction costs: Some waste minimization options, such as those
of waste exchanges, merely facilitate access to information, i.e.,
they reduce the transaction costs associated with improving the
management of hazardous wastes. Evaluating the technical
effectiveness is, thus, quite subjective. Pertinent questions include:
— What waste minimization transactions does this option affect,
and what specific problems is it aimed at correcting or
ameliorating?
— How effective will it be in its stated objective?
• Measuring results: A key factor in the technical effectiveness of any option
is the degree to which its success can be predicted in advance, or measured
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Evaluation of Waste Minimization Options
after implementation. Standards of performance, for instance, might have
fairly easily predictable and specific effects on the composition and volume
of wastes produced. On the other hand, it may be extremely difficult to
estimate the effects produced by various types of incentive programs (such
as loans, grants, or technology transfers), or options aimed at reducing
transaction costs (information hotlines, waste brokers). It is not necessarily
critical to be able to measure the effectiveness of an option, but it may be an
important factor to consider, especially if the costs of an option are high.
Questions include:
— Is it possible to measure the effectiveness of the option?
— If it is measurable, what are the relevant variables and what
methods would be employed?
Impacts on Industry
There are a variety of potential burdens that a particular waste minimization option
might put on industry, especially since several options under consideration could intrude
significantly further into the details of production processes than traditional environmental
programs have done. Compliance costs are usually the first concern. Other factors include
equity considerations, confidentiality issues, and incentives for noncompliance.
Economic impacts: The costs of complying with a particular waste minimization
option can be negative as well as positive since waste reduction often saves rather than
costs money. Cost questions that might be asked are the following:
• What are the capital costs associated with the option? (These may be
incurred with major process modifications.)
What are its operation and maintenance costs? (These can include
changes in feedstock requirements, energy use, transportation
expenses, and so forth.)
What is the reporting burden? (The costs of reporting to EPA or the
State may be considerable for some options.)
Equity: Because some industries, and some firms within industries, have already
voluntarily begun to minimize their wastes, equity among firms can be an important
consideration in determining the desirability or feasibility of a particular option. Some
options may, in effect, penalize industries that have already reduced their wastes. Others
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Evaluation of Waste Minimization Options
may unnecessarily interfere with the current competitive structure of markets. Pertinent
questions include the following:
• Do costs of compliance with this option vary significantly across
firms or industries with respect to size, category, location, or some
other factor?
• Does the option tend to alter markets for products, or to affect the
current competitive relationships among firms or industries?
• Does the option risk violating the legitimate confidentiality of
proprietary processes?
Incentives for noncompliance: Some waste minimization options could create
strong incentives for noncompliance of one type or another, ranging from nonparticipation
or nonreporting to deliberate violation of regulatory requirements (falsification of records,
illegal dumping, etc.). Questions include:
• Does this option encourage noncompliance?
• Are enforcement tools adequate to compensate for noncompliance
incentives?
Implementation Issues
A wide variety of issues are of concern here, including all aspects of developing,
implementing, and enforcing the option. Also important are the effects of the option on
State programs, its effects on other environmental programs, its flexibility in responding to
changing circumstances, its acceptability to the public, and its effects on changes in
industrial technology.
Legislative authority: It is important to determine what changes will be necessary,
if any, in the legislative authority in order to implement each option. The types of authority
that the Agency will need depends on the option itself. In some cases, the type of
additional authority could be provided by a simple ruling change (e.g., waste audits),
whereas in other cases it may require extensive Congressional legislation. The type of
questions that need to be answered are:
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Evaluation of Waste Minimization Options
• What are the types of legislative changes that will be necessary in
order to implement the option?
• Is additional legislative change necessary or can modifications be
made to existing authority?
• Would a simple ruling change instead of additional legislative
authority be a more appropriate method to extend the Agency's
ability to implement the option?
Time required for implementation: Timing is an important variable in the evaluation
of the options. For some options, implementation is contingent on the outcome of other
options or regulatory policies. It may be that an option will not take long to implement, but
that implementation cannot occur until after the other options or policies take effect.
Questions that need to be addressed are:
• What is the reasonable length of time it would take to develop the
option?
• Are there delays or contingencies that might otherwise hold up the
implementation of the option (e.g., land disposal restrictions)?
• How long after implementation would the option be expected to
influence waste minimization?
Appropriate target industries: Not all the options are appropriate for every industry
or for every waste stream. It may be necessary to identify those industries and waste
streams that best meet the goals of waste minimization. Issuing performance standards, for
example, might be a satisfactory means of minimizing waste, but the type of standard
would likely have to vary depending on the type of industry and waste stream(s) involved.
The important questions are:
• What are the most suitable industries for the option?
• What waste streams within a targeted industry are best adapted to the
option?
• Will targeting industries interfere with implementation of other
options?
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Evaluation of Waste Minimization Options
Costs of development and implementation: These include all direct costs to the
Agency for conducting research, gathering and analyzing data, writing regulations, writing
permits and enforcing regulations, or any other expenses necessary under the option. If
grants or awards were selected, for example, costs would include the amount of the grants
or awards. Questions include:
• What would the intramural staff requirements be, at Headquarters
and in the Regional Offices?
• What would extramural costs be (data gathering/data automation,
research, etc.)?
• Are there any special enforcement considerations (e.g., new
categories of regulated parties, history of poor compliance in a
regulated sector)?
Other Considerations
This final category covers criteria or concerns that may not be germane to all of the
options. It is a catch-all section in which it is possible to evaluate options that have unique
aspects. Additional criteria include: flexibility in implementation, impacts on States, public
perception, effects on other environmental programs, and effects on innovative technology.
• Flexibility in implementation: flexibility may be an important issue,
particularly since the context in which waste minimization is being
enacted is still fluid. Options that have strict administrative
requirements (such as standards of performance issued as
conventional regulations) are likely to be considerably less flexible
than others (e.g., performance standards enacted as phasedown
permits). Questions include the following:
— To what degree can enactment of the option be negotiated with
involved parties?
— Are formal administrative variances and other procedures
required to modify the specified conditions?
• Impacts on States: States are already an integral part of the
hazardous waste management system. Their involvement in waste
minimization will likewise be important. Questions include the
following:
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Evaluation of Waste Minimization Options
— Does the option interfere with or duplicate waste minimization or
hazardous waste management policies already established by the
States?
— What costs and staff burdens would the options put on the
States, and how would these expenses be defrayed?
— Is voluntary State involvement required in order for the option to
work?
— Must State involvement be uniform across the country for the
option to work?
Public perception: Because the whole subject of hazardous waste
management is of such concern to the general public, waste
minimization options should be compatible with public opinion.
Some of the options under consideration may be more difficult for
the public to accept than others: for instance, the public has always
been skeptical of environmental programs that appear to operate on a
"pay-to-pollute" basis. Therefore, although options like phasedown
permits are considered to be an economically efficient way to reduce
waste generation, the public may not endorse a program where
companies buy permits that allow them to generate hazardous
materials. On the positive side, it may also be important to consider
whether a given option reduces public anxiety about hazardous
waste. Many companies have already embarked on voluntary waste
minimization programs partly to improve their public environmental
image. The key questions are summarized below.
— Is this option compatible with public opinion?
— Does it allow industry to take credit for voluntary actions taken
to reduce hazardous wastes?
Effects on other environmental programs: Some waste minimization
options may require extensive internal cooperation among EPA
programs. An example would be the use of the Effluent Guidelines
program to restrict hazardous waste generation. If such cross
program relationships are important, they should be identified in
advance. The type of questions that need to be answered are listed
below.
— Does this option shift any wastes or risks out of the jurisdiction
of the hazardous wastes system and into that of another
program?
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Evaluation of Waste Minimization Options
— If so, have such shifts been made deliberately, and are they in
the overall best interests of protecting human health and the
environment?
— If not, can they be mitigated or corrected?
Effects on innovative technology: Some options may tend to
stimulate technological innovations in reducing the generation of
hazardous waste; others may tend to stifle innovation and lock in
existing technology. Major questions would be:
— Would this option have a positive or a negative effect on
technological innovation?
— If so, would such effects have been noted in the development of
the option?
Discussion of Options
The following sections summarize the detailed evaluations of each of the options
reviewed for this report to Congress; Not all of the questions raised above are dealt with
below; Appendix A contains a more extensive analysis of the various factors considered.
The sections below highlight the issues that have emerged as most critical in the detailed
evaluations.
To aid in the comparison of options, Figure 3-1 presents a timeline summarizing the
schedule for implementing each option. Where additional Congressional authority might be
needed before the Agency could proceed with a particular option, it has been assumed that
authorization will be forthcoming by 1988. Time is allocated for such tasks as data
gathering, research, regulatory development, and regulatory implementation. Where the
desirability or feasibility of an option is dependent on market reactions to any of the
scheduled land disposal restrictions, the Agency has estimated that all necessary data could
be available within two years of promulgation of a rule (although it could take longer, in
some cases, either for the new rule to change behavior, or for the gathering of data to trace
such changes).
As a further aid for comparing the options, Table 3-1 briefly summarizes the pros
and cons of each option, as revealed by the evaluations. These represent the Agency's
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Evaluation of Waste Minimization Options
Performince Sundard*
Legltlatlve
Changee to HSWA Management Practice* Other Option*
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Table 3-1
Summary of Advantages and Disadvantages of Wasta Minimization Options
Option
Performance
Standards Limiting
the Volume or
Toxicity of Wastes
Prohibit or Restrict
Generation of
Specific Wastes
Waste Generation or
Management Phase-
down Permit Program
Modifications To
RCRA: Requirements
for Certification of
Waste Minimization
BantheLandfflling,
Treatment, or Incin—
oration of Potentially
Recyclable Wastes
Advantages
Disadvantages
Directly mandates controls.
Generally acceptable to public.
Establish dear, numerical goals.
Define technology-based, defensible limits.
Suitable for industries producing high volume
or high loxldty waste streams.
Provide Incentives to industry to invest in alt. technologies.
Encourage polluters to pay for pollution reduction.
Direct application of source reduction regulatory program.
Based on existing authority of TSCA 6(a).
Likely to be acceptable to public.
Consistent with HSWA and RCRA intent.
Sensitive to market mechanisms; economically efficient.
Mandates waste volume reduction.
Best targeted to industries with homogeneous waste
streams.
Provides incentives to generators to develop new
technologies.
Built on existing requirements.
Increase industry capacity to increase WM "voluntarily."
Improve EPA administration of HSWA.
Provide State tech. assist, programs with better information.
Modest administrative costs to clarify guidance.
Speed of implementation following Congressional authority.
Best targeted to highly toxic waste streams.
Based on existing HSWA authority.
EPA can choose to target waste streams or sites/generators.
Sets clear numerical goals.
Generally acceptable to public.
Long development time.
Intrudes into industry operations.
Substantial information requirements.
High costs of development/implementation.
Potential for many variances.
Difficult to enforce.
Adverse Impact on construction of new facilities.
Inflexible to Industries that have significantly minimized wastes.
Potential for adverse effects.
Significant potential for litigation.
Imposes significant costs on States.
Resource intensive — economically inefficient approach to waste minimization.
Significant information requirements.
May encourage illegal disposal.
Potential for increased discharge to other media .
Controversy over rulemaking may significantly delay implementation.
May be viewed as government intrusion into manufacturing processes.
High costs of implementation.
Difficult to enforce.
Potential for large wealth transfers.
Need for EPA to minimize market uncertainties.
Potentially expensive to develop permit system.
Potential long development time.
Potential negative public perception.
Reporting burden on industry.
i.
I
o
§
3
I
1
Very resource intensive.
Difficult to enforce.
Potential for many variances.
Expensive to develop.
Inflexible in distinguishing between industries with high vs. low volume
recycling potential.
Complex rulemaking.
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Table 3-1
Summary of Advantages and Disadvantages of Waste Minimization Options
Option
Segregation of
Wastes
Mandatory
Waste Audits
Technical Assistance
Program
I
VO
Procurement
Practice
Advantages
Disadvantages
May reduce volumes of wastes generated.
Makes increased recycling feasible.
Renders non-recycled waste streams
easier to treat.
Responsive to market mechanisms in selected industries.
Several processes with substantial recycling potential.
Speed of implementation.
Existing authority: Amendment to CERCLA.
Moderate enforcement costs re: notification.
Encourage targeted industries to self-police.
Flexible requirements allows EPA to follow up case-by-case.
Applicable to large volume or high toxicity target industries.
Support existing State program initiatives.
Encourage industry to act voluntarily to minimize waste.
Strengthen intragovernmental system.
Require modest increases in expenditures.
Support development of focused, centralized activity
for States.
Avoids duplication of State efforts.
Speed of implementation following Congressional authorization.
Industry and site-specific feasibility will vary.
Significant costs.
Significant Information requirements.
Long development time.
Significant enforcement costs.
Imposes significant new costs on State programs.
High enforcement costs if industry views it as a regulatory requirement.
High enforcement costs to verify implementation by SQGs.
Large-scale technical assistance programs are not traditional EPA activities.
Would require positive and sustained internal and external commitment and support.
Additional EPA staffing requirements.
Incur new administrative costs for developing computerized Information system.
Build on existing DOO waste minimization activities.
EPA can use existing RCRA authority Section 6002.
Voluntary, self enforceable.
Sign, cost of development for data collection, reproduction, substitution, and
procurement of virgin materials; wastes associated with purchased products.
Would require significant coordination with other agencies.
Significant development time.
Potential difficulty to measure policy effectiveness.
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Evaluation of Waste Minimization Options
assessment of the feasibility and desirability of each option and are the basis of the
recommendations for action presented in Chapter Four.
Each of the four categories of waste minimization options is presented below.
Standards of Performance
HSWA requires EPA to evaluate "standards of performance" as a general option for
possible use in minimizing wastes through source reduction. As a concept, standards of
performance have the distinct advantage of specifically restricting the quantity or toxicity of
a waste that is generated, but their implementation requires direct government intervention
in the activities of specific industries and facilities. While performance standards have been
the primary mechanism for reducing air and water pollution, the standards for controlling
pollutants in these media were generally based on end-of-pipe control technologies.
Performance standards for minimization of hazardous waste, however, would depend
substantially on internal process modifications. As such, they represent a significant
departure from the existing philosophy and past practice of environmental regulation,
which generally deals with the pollutants after they are generated.
The use of standards of performance to require waste minimization does not imply a
single type of regulation. There are many possible variations in practice; the four most
significant and practical have been evaluated for the purposes of this report. The common
thread among the various approaches is that each would probably require changes in the
production processes responsible for the generation of hazardous wastes. The options
differ in their approaches to accomplishing the changes. One is in the classic command and
control method, i.e., by dictating exact processes to be used in producing specific products
or mandating specific amounts of reduction of waste on a per unit output basis. Adoption
of such an option would require modifying RCRA to create a program similar in type to the
New Source Performance Standards program under the Clean Air Act, or the Effluent
Guidelines program under the Clean Water ACL
Other options that fall generally under the concept of performance standards
include:
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Evaluation of Waste Minimization Options
• Specific standards limiting the volume or toxicity of wastes based on
authority under other programs to accomplish command and control
type reduction in volume or toxicity of wastes; this is discussed
below in relation to the use of TSCA Section 6.
• Phasedown permits to accomplish source reduction indirectly, by
setting up a market that lets EPA set minimization targets overall;
this would let the affected industry or industries determine which
processes would be affected.
• Prohibit or restrict the generation of specific wastes; this would be
similar to the basic performance standard option, but would be more
selective. It might also rely on the use of TSCA Section 6.
Table 3-1 summarizes the pros and cons of each approach, based on the structured
evaluation conducted using the criteria presented above. The sections below outline the
reasoning behind these conclusions. A general approach is then suggested for determining
how and when standards of performance might be adopted.
Traditional performance standards limiting volume and/or toxicity of wastes for
generators: Performance standards are technology based, limiting the volume,
concentration, and/or toxicity of a specific waste stream or toxic constituent generated per
unit of industrial production. A performance standard could apply either to specific
industrial categories, or to specific waste generating operations. Limits would be
established for a specific waste, based on the existence of an internal process modification
to reduce waste quantity or toxicity to the prescribed level. In the Agency's opinion,
performance standards for waste minimization should not dictate that a specific technology
be used, only that a specific generation level be met.
Establishment of performance standards to achieve waste minimization would
require the enactment of legislative authority by Congress: neither RCRA nor HSWA
provide EPA with authority to establish waste minimization requirements for generators.
As noted earlier, under Section 6(a) of TSCA, EPA does have the authority to regulate a
substance or waste stream that poses an "unreasonable risk of injury to human health or the
environment."
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The Agency believes that performance standards for waste minimization could be
appropriate to those industries that produce high volume or high toxicity waste streams,
and which continue to represent, after the imposition of the land disposal restrictions
program, a significant risk to human health and the environment. Not all such cases,
however, are appropriate targets for performance standards. An evaluation would first be
required to determine whether there are economically feasible technological alternatives to
current industry production or recycling practices. Industries using batch, rather than
continuous processes, for example, are likely to be more difficult to control. And in some
cases (e.g., solvents), treatment by incineration may be more effective and less costly than
alternative source reduction approaches.
According to the data currently available, the organic chemicals industry (SIC 2869)
is the largest generator of hazardous waste. Several industrial processes included under
organic chemical manufacturing, such as the manufacture of acrylonitrile, epichlorohydrin,
1,1,1-trichloroethane, trichloroethylene, trichloroethylene/perchloroethylene, and, vinyl
chloride monomer, are carried out in a small number of very large plants. While these
processes produce large volumes of wastes, the engineering analysis in EPA's technical
support document concluded that these facilities have already significantly reduced their
wastes. Because of the volumes involved, however, small percentage reductions-could still
result in substantial overall volume reductions.
Other industries with waste streams identified as highly toxic include dry cleaning
and paint manufacturing. Once again, however, the waste streams involved, e.g.,
tetrachloroethane distillation residues from dry cleaning (F002), or methyl ethyl ketone
spent solvents from paint manufacture (F005), are subject to the first phases of the land
disposal restrictions, and practices may change as a result.
In some cases, whether or not an industry would be an appropriate target for
performance standards may depend on available centralized treatment or recovery capacity
and capability. The electroplating industry, for example, produces large volumes of metal
bearing sludges (F006). Since most electroplating facilities are quite small, substantial
process changes to reduce waste generation are not likely to be financially feasible, but
centralized ion-exchange metal recovery waste processing plants to which electroplaters
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Evaluation of Waste Minimization Options
could send their wastes might substantially reduce the costs of recovery, making possible a
degree of waste reduction and recycling that could not otherwise be achieved by individual
electroplating plants.
It is impossible at this time, however, to predict the extent to which performance
standards can minimize waste, especially because of their long development time and
changes that may now be occurring, although it is apparent that, in certain cases,
performance standards can be effective in volume and toxicity reduction. Achievable
reductions would also vary depending on the specific industry or process involved.
While EPA has not utilized performance standards for the reduction of hazardous
wastes, it obviously has considerable experience with their application to reduce air and
water pollution. Under the Clean Air Act, performance standards have been established for
emissions of "criteria" pollutants from new stationary sources (New Source Performance
Standards) for each major category of pollution source for criteria pollutants. Existing
facilities are similarly regulated through Reasonably Available Control Technology (RACT)
performance standards, which are applied to facilities through State regulations. These air
pollution standards apply only to criteria pollutants and are not for specific toxic pollutants.
The only air standards intended specifically for highly toxic pollutants are the National
Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAPs).
Under the Clean Water Act, effluent limitations are established for both
"conventional" and toxic pollutants. These effluent standards are discussed in more detail
later in this section. Under both statutes, periodic review of the performance standards is
required to take into account new technological developments that could permit more
effective control.
Limitations on the volume and toxicity of hazardous wastes could be similarly
established for specific industrial categories. The major difference would be that
performance standards for hazardous waste minimization would usually be based on the
potential for reduction resulting from process changes rather than on end-of-pipe controls,
which is generally how performance standards are developed under the air and water
programs. (Exceptions would be requirements based on good operating practices, such as
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segregation of different waste streams to facilitate recovery or treatment, requirements
based on raw material substitution, or requirements based on recycling of specific wastes
after their generation.) Because hazardous waste minimization standards would frequently
be based on process modifications, their design would require substantially more process-
specific information than the Agency currently has available, as well as the development of
substantial new expertise on industrial processes within EPA.
Performance standards can be structured many different ways. They can be
developed for all sources in an industrial category, or they can be limited to only the larger
sources or to only new sources. The approach can be targeted for certain high volume or
high toxicity waste streams. Performance standards can focus only on source reduction or
they can be based on recycling.
The type and scale of the program selected will have a significant bearing on both
the costs and time required to implement the program. It is not feasible at present to make
accurate estimates of the costs of implementation of developing a full scale performance
standard. However, it is believed that the program would be similar to the costs of
implementing the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. It is likely that because of the
complexity of performance standards that it will take a number of years to develop the
program. Since it would require the imposition of standards and limits directly impinging
on the processes of production and not simply end-of-pipe controls, it seems likely that the
time required for development would be as long or longer than for the air and water
standards.
One major modification to performance standards, the development of a credit
system, would substantially increase the flexibility of the approach. Credit could be given
to a plant for recycling, incineration, or waste reduction beyond the limits of the standards;
such credits might be banked against loadings from other regulated streams, based on
volume or toxicity. Credits could be used by a single plant or could be made available by a
plant that created them to a plant unable to meet one of the performance standard
requirements reasonably. This could significantly alleviate the economic dislocation which
might otherwise be caused by standards directly affecting the production processes. A
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credit system of this kind stands part way between a traditional performance standard
system and the phasedown permits system described in the next section.2
The traditional approach to standards of performance has the advantage of
mandating specific quantities of minimization that can be enforced. Consequently, such
performance standards are popular with the general public. On the other hand, the
development and enforcement of these standards would be extremely resource intensive,
requiring considerable investment of time and money over a decade or more. Detailed
intermedia risk evaluations would have to be done in setting up such standards.
Prohibit or restrict generation of specific wastes: Under this third option, EPA
would ban or otherwise restrict the manufacture, processing, or distribution of a chemical
substance. The restriction or prohibition could focus on feedstocks that are responsible for
particular waste streams, and could be aimed at the waste streams themselves. The option
would be mostly implemented on a waste stream specific basis, although there would be
occasions to prohibit or restrict wastes on an industry specific basis.3 It would presumably
be enacted through the authority already existing under TSCA, Section 6.
This option could be an extremely powerful tool in controlling hazardous waste
generation. It is probably the most direct application of a source reduction regulatory
program and should be explored further. The effectiveness of this option in reducing
volume and toxicity is completely dependent on which waste streams are regulated,
however, and cannot be estimated at this time.
Waste generation phasedown permit program: A waste generation phasedown
permit program differs significantly from the other approaches to performance standards in
that it is a system of rights designed to limit the volume of hazardous wastes that generators
can produce. Like other standards of performance, however, a phasedown permit program
does mandate waste reduction in a direct and enforceable manner.
o
For a more complete description of a possible credit system, see Appendix A.
For example, methylene chloride use could be prohibited as a paint stripper in certain operations
where bead blasting would be appropriate.
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Under this option, permits would be issued to generators (or waste treatment,
storage, and disposal facilities) to allow them to produce certain quantities of wastes.
Unlike the other performance standards approaches, however, these permits could be
bought or sold in a market system.
Permits could be initially assigned in one of three ways: through an auction,
through a lottery, or by "grandfathering." In an auction, EPA would sell the permits at a
market clearing price; if EPA did not want to keep the proceeds, they could return the
revenue to current generators to compensate them for their loss of generator rights. In a
lottery, the initial allocation of rights would be random; there would then be a second round
of transactions with lottery winners selling rights to generators with the greatest need, i.e.,
generators with the highest source reduction or recycling costs. Finally, in a
grandfathering allocation, all current generators would receive permits for a certain
percentage of their current waste generation; in the second round of transactions,
generators with high waste reduction costs could buy extra permits from generators with
low reduction costs.
The degree of EPA's involvement in a phasedown permit system could vary. The
Agency could act as an information broker, by identifying sellers and buyers, and
explaining the nature of the market and permit price. Alternatively, it could act as a certifier
and enforcer of market transactions. Since a phasedown permit system would not self-
enforce, the Agency might want to serve as a gatekeeper and be directly involved in
approving market transactions.
Waste generation phasedown permits appear most effective for industries that are
not dominated by a few major generators and would be most effective in industries that are
composed of a limited number of homogeneous operations. If ownership is concentrated
in the hands of a few generators, they could effectively dictate prices, defeating the purpose
of the system. At the other extreme, industries with too many generators would be difficult
to monitor.
Phasedown permits can also be effective in reducing the hazardous waste volume,
at lower cost. Since generators who utilize low cost methods for waste minimization will
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find the permits most attractive, phasedown permits will have the added benefit of
stimulating the development of low cost source reduction technologies. The effectiveness
of this option can be limited if permits are monopolized by a few owners, a problem that
could be overcome by establishing a "maximum" market share, by using an auction
scheme, or by stratifying the generators by volume into separate markets. Market
"thinness," the hoarding of permits in anticipation of decreases in the number and size of
future permits or because of general market uncertainty, can cause this option to be
ineffective.
Phasedown permits would be generally effective in toxicity reduction only as a
by-product of volume reduction. EPA can specifically reduce the overall level of waste
toxicity by allocating permits for different waste streams according to their toxicity. Thus,
the permit for a highly toxic waste would not be used with a low toxic waste, and vice
versa. This would probably be extremely difficult to design and implement, as all such
constraints on the system reduce the size of the market and increase its transaction costs,
thereby reducing the efficiency of the overall system.
To develop this option, EPA would first have to decide what form that the system
would take. It would have to decide whether to issue permits to TSDFs or to generators.4
It would also have to establish a waste limit, project how the amounts will change over
time, and decide which allocation scheme would be most effective — auction, lottery, or
grandfathering. The Agency would also have to determine an adequate term for the
permits, sufficient to recoup costs of any waste reduction technology; it might also have to
determine appropriate geographic restrictions for trading. Finally, EPA would have to
identify a method for managing and enforcing the permits, keeping in mind that the more
involved the Agency becomes, the higher its administrative costs will be.
Implementation costs would vary depending on the extent of EPA involvement, the
complexity of the permit system, the method of permit allocation, and other variables.
It would be easier and less expensive to permit the TSDFs, since they are fewer in number and
already require permits, thus minimizing overall administrative burden; however, the generators
are the source of the hazardous waste, and permitting TSDFs would add an additional layer of
uncertainty and transaction costs to the system.
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Enforcement costs would be most affected by permitting TSDFs and generators. Of the
two, the more ubiquitous generators would have the highest enforcement cost
EPA might need additional legislative authority to implement such a program
depending upon the format to be used to allocate permits. When the Agency attempted to
use this type of approach for chlorofluorocarbons under TSCA, it felt that it did not have
the legal authority to auction permits, but that it could distribute them with a lottery or by a
grandfathering scheme.
Recommendations on standards of performance: The most important drawback to
the use of any form of standards of performance for waste minimization is that they would
mark a major departure from the traditional methods authorized by Congress for the control
of pollution. Although certain statutes, most notably the Toxic Substances Control Act,
give EPA the power to control production processes and production decisions directly, this
authority is rarely used. The vast majority of controls enacted under RCRA, the Clean
Water Act, and the Clean Air Aqt are end-of-pipe measures; although examples exist where
processes have been directly affected by regulations, these are the exception rather than the
rule.
The implementation of any of these options would require (1) data collection to
identify target industries, processes, and substances and the (2) drafting of the necessary
regulations. Because of the information needs, the Agency estimates that the total time to
implement any of these options would be at least five years after authorization, and more
probably seven or more. Therefore, there could be significant delay before the effects of
performance standards would be felt. In the meantime, changes due to the land disposal
restrictions program may make standards inappropriate, unnecessary, or ineffective.
All standards of performance would require intensive government involvement in
development and enforcement. The burden on States may be inordinate without technical
assistance from the Federal government. In addition, while it is true that many of the costs
of waste minimization through standards of performance will eventually be passed on to the
consumer, it is not at all clear whether the reductions in damage to the environment and
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human health are commensurate with increased costs. Additional study is needed to
resolve this issue.
Because insufficient data are available to establish an accurate waste generation
baseline, or to compare costs and benefits, the Agency suggests that several steps be taken
before any final judgment on the desirability and feasibility of standards of performance is
made:
• Before the land disposal restrictions are fully implemented by 1990,
a data base should be compiled to establish:
— A baseline with regard to toxicity and volume of waste streams
by industrial category, geographic area and size, and unit
product output;
— A baseline with regard to recycling, treatment, and disposal
practices for those waste streams;
— Short-term trends in these figures;
— Changes in manufacturing processes that result in reduced
generation of waste; and
— Changes in recycling, treatment, and disposal practices.
• EPA should then evaluate the impact that standards of performance
might have on waste minimization. It may be apparent at that time
that certain industrial sectors have not minimized wastes to the extent
technically and economically feasible and desirable, or that particular
waste streams still pose significant environmental or human health
hazards.
Where, as a result of these analyses, it is determined that
performance standards are the most appropriate means to ensure
further necessary reductions in hazardous waste, EPA would then
undertake the development of such standards. To the extent "
feasible, generators should be provided maximum flexibility in
meeting these reduction requirements, possibly including some form
of the credit system.
• Where specific hazardous waste streams are identified as causing
potentially critical environmental problems or human health risks
between now and 1990, specific interim performance standards for
these waste streams could be developed under Section 6(a) of the
Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA).
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Legislative Changes to Certification Requirements on Generators' Manifests and TSD
Permits
Among the options that Congress has instructed EPA to consider are a number of
actions that, along with performance standards, would require statutory amendments.
These involve changes to the certification requirements for generators established by
HSWA. They include two general areas:
1. Possible changes to the requirements established by HSWA in
Section 3002 (Generator Standards); and
2. Possible changes to the requirements established by HSWA in
Section 3005 (Permits Standards).
Requirements for Certification of Waste Minimization: Based on the legislative
history of HSWA, EPA interprets the certification requirement for generators as prohibiting
the development of any formal guidance to generators concerning what would constitute
appropriate waste reduction or recycling for minimizing the volume or quantity and toxicity
of waste, or concerning what is economically practicable. In addition, only the generator
may determine what constitutes the available practicable method of treatment, storage, or
disposal that will minimize the future threat to human health and the environment.
The Senate report on the certification stresses at several points that the requirement
is strictly one of self-certification.
"While these provisions encourage the reduction of hazardous waste
generated, they are directed at the generators of such waste and do not
authorize the Environmental Protection Agency or any other person or
organization to interfere with or intrude into the production process or
production decision of individual generators... The nature of the criteria for
the certification and the determination of compliance with those criteria are
made solely by the generator."5
Proposed modifications reflect an alternative method by which EPA could
determine more specifically the range of generally acceptable practices. EPA would need
to acquire express legislative authority to undertake any of several initiatives in this area.
5 Report of the Committee on Environment and Public Works to Accompany S. 757 , U.S. Senate,
October 28, 1983, p. 66.
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Current statutory requirements for certification were clearly directed at generators and do
not authorize EPA to intrude into the production process via the certification. If these
restrictions were relaxed, EPA could be given the discretionary authority to characterize
certain process modifications as waste minimization, or to evaluate economic practicability,
or both. If EPA were permitted such increased authority, the Agency might also quickly
specify general practices that could npj be certified as acceptable waste minimization (e.g.,
merely listing a waste in a waste exchange catalogue and not taking part in a waste
transaction).
EPA could use such increased discretionary authority in industrial sectors where
data or trends indicate residual risks to human health or the environment. The Agency
could determine more precisely what practices are and are not acceptable as waste
minimization for certain environmentally critical targeted industries, once the impact of the
land bans upon specific industries becomes clear. These restrictions would constrain or
direct industry with respect to meeting the certification requirements. But if generators
were still permitted to determine the economic practicability of alternatives to their present
practices, they would still retain considerable freedom of action in determining both the
timing and extent of changes to their manufacturing processes. Where a generator certified
that there was no economically practicable alternative to present practices, however, EPA
might be provided with the discretionary authority to require that the generator submit a
written justification for such a certification.
The effect of the use of such discretionary authority would be to force industry to
think more carefully about the opportunities for minimizing waste. If, after these steps, the
Agency still found a remaining unreasonable risk to human health or the environment, it
could use authority under TSCA Section 6(a) or Section 6(b) to impose additional
requirements, either generally on the handling of particular waste streams by an industrial
sector, or specifically on activities of a particular generator. Examples of general categories
of possible waste minimization activities might include process changes, substitution of
less toxic materials, good housekeeping practices, and alternative treatment techniques.
EPA could develop such new guidance relatively quickly, i.e., within one year of
authorization. (If the Agency decided to develop such guidance through rulemaking, an
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additional six months to a year.) The initial phases for development might be very fast,
since the guidance would focus on widely known or readily available opportunities to
reduce, reuse, or recycle waste. Identification of preferred management priorities for
certain major waste streams could also probably be developed and coordinated with the
States' technical assistance programs.
For generators required to meet the stricter certification requirements, additional
costs would only occur when the generators choose to certify and describe an alternative
waste minimization activity, or when they would be required to justify that there were no
economically practicable alternatives to their present practices.
In order to carry out the modified certification program that has been described,
EPA would require specific new discretionary authority to:
• Specify practices not certifiable as waste minimization;
t • Specify practices that may be considered to be waste minimization
for a specific industrial sector, and
• Require generators to submit justifications for certifications that no
waste minimization alternatives to present practices are economically
practicable.
Recommendations on legislative changes to certification requirements: Giving EPA
the discretionary authority to specify what does and does not constitute acceptable waste
minimization actions would carry with it some indirect authority to influence production
processes and production decisions. The Agency believes that such discretionary authority
merits further study. If EPA finds a need for longer term activities, this option could be
used to prevent the implementation of ill-advised practices that could harm human health or
the environment and increase the potential for constructive waste minimization. It appears
feasible because its use would be discretionary (used only selectively) and because it would
not entail major new programs or expenditures or interfere to any significant degree with
private production decisions.
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Management Practices
Management practices as defined in this report are procedures or institutional
policies within a service or manufacturing operation that result in a reduction in hazardous
waste generation. These measures are considered to be a step beyond the prohibitions on
land disposal of specified hazardous wastes and include requirements restricting particular
disposal practices, requirements relating to the handling of wastes as they are generated,
and requirements related to management control of the waste generation system, such as
through the use of waste audits.
Three of the waste minimization options are classified as management practices.
These include: (1) banning the landfilling, treatment, or incineration of potentially
recyclable wastes; (2) segregation of wastes; and (3) use of mandatory waste audits.
Banning the landfllling, treatment, or incineration of potentially-recyclable wastes:
By prohibiting the landfllling, treatment, or incineration of wastes that could otherwise be
recycled, EPA could indirectly promote waste minimization by forcing generators to recycle
these waste streams, find source reduction methods, or stop producing the products that
generate potentially recyclable wastes. Development of this option requires that target
industries and waste streams be identified; alternatively, a ban might be applied "across the
board" to all generators, regardless of size.
To be cost effective, the ban should be limited only to streams in excess of a
specified volume or possibly a specified level of toxicity. Once the categories of regulated
industries and streams are identified, EPA would have to develop a list of recyclable wastes
using standard notice-and-comment rulemaking.
Banning land disposal, treatment, or incineration of potentially-recyclable waste
streams would probably be controversial and possibly inefficient. Costs of recycling can
be great, and the appropriateness of labeling certain wastes as "recyclable" is certain to be
debated. It may, in fact, be premature to consider this option prior to determining the effect
that land disposal restrictions will have on the quantities of wastes generated.
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At least one State, California, has a limited ban that prohibits land disposal of
recyclable wastes, but allows generators to treat or incinerate the waste. The California ban
is a two-stage process;
1. A limited group of liquid wastes is banned from land disposal. The
list includes concentrated cyanides and halogenated organics, strong
acids, and metals exceeding specified concentrations.
2. There is a second, longer list of wastes that are part of the California
waste exchange system. These wastes can be recycled regardless of
concentration. Periodically, the State checks manifests from
generators and notifies any facilities that have a recyclable waste that
is being land disposed; approximately 60 percent of the contacted
facilities were unaware that the waste could be recycled. Wastes
from the remaining 40 percent are either generated in small volumes
or mixed with other contaminants. California has no enforcement
authority for wastes on this second list.
There are several drawbacks to this option. First, a ban is difficult to enforce. It
would be most difficult to ensure that all recyclable wastes are managed in a prescribed
manner, and, because a ban is expensive, noncompliance would presumably be substantial.
Second, demand for many recycled wastes is currently insufficient to sustain a recycling
market. EPA can help strengthen demand (and market price) by adopting other measures
such as an expanded use of waste exchanges. Third, requests for variances and appeals
may become burdensome. In California, for example, to obtain a variance, a generator
must prove that recycling is technically or economically not feasible.
Generally, a ban is most appropriate for large generators of highly toxic wastes that
can be recycled or reduced using existing technologies. A ban can be effective in reducing
the volume of waste generated, but it is difficult to assess its effectiveness in reducing the
toxicity of waste that is generated, since any measurement is dependent on the volume of
wastes that are classified as recyclable and the degree of industry compliance.
Bans would be an expensive approach to waste minimization. Costs to industry
can be minimized by properly targeting appropriate waste streams, based on the volume of
wastes, toxicity, and technical and economic feasibility of recycling. Government costs for
both development and enforcement of a ban would also be high. EPA would first have to
define "recyclable" and formally identify recyclable streams. Since at a high enough cost
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almost any stream can be recycled, costs will have to be considered in defining "potentially
recyclable." If costs were too great, a firm would simply stop producing the
waste-generating product. The major drawback of this option is its lack of enforceability.
To enforce a ban, EPA would have to discover violations before the wastes have been
managed. It may be difficult to identify whether a waste was defined as recyclable after it
has been treated or disposed of. The Agency must determine whether a two-stage ban
framework like that used in California is preferred. Such a determination should also
address the magnitude of expected reductions in toxicity or risk which might result from
EPA adoption of this approach to a ban.
The regulated community is likely to consider this option inequitable because its
costs are high and its perceived benefits low. Generators and managers are likely to argue
that (1) the option is inequitable, since all waste streams and all generators are not equally
regulated, and (2) they already comply with Subtitle C regulations for managing waste,
which were established to protect human health and the environment.
Segregation of wastes: This option would ban the mixing of waste streams that are
determined to be potentially recyclable. EPA would decide when waste stream segregation
would be required based on the same types of technology evaluations and economic
analyses that are currently used to make the technology based performance standard
determinations under the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. This type of management
practice could include the isolation of hazardous materials from nonhazardous materials, the
isolation of hazardous waste by contaminant, or the isolation of liquid from solid waste.
To encourage segregation, EPA would have to develop an industry or
process-specific "best management practices" approach, similar to the technology-driven
standards currently used in Effluent Guidelines (under the Clean Water Act) and New
Source Performance Standards (under the Clean Air Act). This process specific approach
is not applicable to all waste streams and, in fact, would be limited only to situations where
multiple waste streams have historically been combined prior to disposal. While it would
indirectly encourage recycling, it would not specifically require that wastes be reclaimed
and reused.
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The potential for segregation of waste streams is industry specific and would vary
depending on the process being used, as well as the age of the plant, its physical layout,
economics, and other factors. Standards could be established for new sources only, or for
both new sources and existing sources. In order to identify target industries, a survey
would have to be undertaken to identify industries where segregation of wastes could
actually achieve significant reductions in wastes. The survey and the subsequent industry
specific analyses would be both resource and time consuming; such studies would be
similar in scale to those described in relation to standards of performance. (If standards of
performance were integrated into the comprehensive waste minimization strategy, then an
assessment of the potential for, and the implementation of, waste stream segregation could
be incorporated at minimal additional effort and cost)
Onsite recycling potential would have to be determined through industry analyses.
Information on what materials could be recycled offsite could be developed through
industry analyses and data obtained through waste exchanges.
Some preliminary studies have been performed to evaluate the potential impact that
waste segregation could have on minimization. There are many instances where the
potential for recycling would be substantial if appropriate wastes were segregated. For
example, pesticide formulaters could reduce waste volumes by using air pollution controls
(baghouses) dedicated to collecting a single type of dust, e.g., pesticides. This would
eliminate the contamination of one waste stream with a second waste, thus expediting
recycling or reuse of the recovered materials. Other cases where segregation appears to be
attractive include segregating aqueous and oily wastes in petroleum refineries, wood
preserving where "good operating practices" could be used to separate hazardous from
nonhazardous contaminants, and segregating rinses at electroplaters.
It is impossible at this time to estimate quantitatively how effective waste
segregation would be in minimizing the quantities or toxicities of wastes generated
nationally. It is clear, however, based on information already available, that certain streams
that are indeed quite toxic. Notable among these streams are solvent-laden wastes
generated during the cleaning of equipment and metal surfaces, pesticide dusts collected in
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baghouses at formulators, and an assortment of wastes containing levels of highly toxic
organic compounds and metals.
The segregation of wastes does have the potential in selected instances to be
economically attractive. It could, in fact, save some firms significant sums of money by
reducing treatment and disposal costs, lowering expenses for the purchase of raw
materials, and/or generating a reclaimed product that can be marketed or sent to a waste
exchange. Waste stream segregation might therefore become economically attractive
without additional regulation. It is conceivable that new prohibitions on land disposal and
dramatically increased costs for all forms of disposal, coupled with substantial efforts to
increase industry awareness of recycling possibilities, could provide adequate information
and incentive for segregation without requiring any action though regulation.
It is impossible to estimate the cost to develop and implement technology based
standards for segregating wastes. Information will be needed concerning which industries
and processes can segregate their waste, monitoring data will be needed to characterize the
streams, and data will be needed on the costs of process and treatment modifications and
the economics of the affected industries. In addition, a survey would have to be
undertaken to ascertain whether markets exist for recycling the segregated wastes. If
performance standards were required for specific industries, best management practices
such as segregation would most likely be considered in the development of those
standards. The costs of segregation would also be considered an integral part of the
implementation of those regulations. These costs could be high if other performance
standards are not considered. In the absence of other performance standards, these costs
will likely be comparable to the cost of developing the performance standard programs
dictated by the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts.
While TSCA Section 6(a) authority might be used to require waste segregation in
some circumstances, additional legislative authority would be needed if waste segregation
were to be mandated on a more comprehensive basis.
Mandatory waste audits: As an additional management practice, firms could be
required to carry out waste audits to identify possibilities for reduction and/or recycling of
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wastes. This requirement could be made generally for all generators (with a possible
exclusion for small quantity generators) or limited to specific industries of special concern.
As discussed here, firms would simply have to meet the auditing requirement, with the
information retained for their own use. The assumption behind such a requirement would
be that identification of opportunities for waste reduction (and elimination of products
and/or raw materials) would provide sufficient incentive for the firms to take action.
An alternative approach to a waste audit requirement would be that information
from such audits would have to be made available to EPA. The Agency would then
determine whether a generator was doing all that was possible to minimize wastes. But
such a use of audit information would raise considerably greater problems and objections,
to say nothing of enormously higher Agency management costs, than would carrying out
the audit for internal use.
There are several elements to a waste audit:
• Identification of waste streams and flow rates in the facility being
audited;
• Delineation of waste generation problems;
• Suggestion of a range of solutions for each of these problems;
• Screening to determine which of these potential solutions should be
studied more thoroughly (using criteria based on feasibility,
effectiveness, cost, and current application experience within
industry);
• Documentation of these options and presentation to, and discussion
with, plant personnel;
• Final rankings of most reasonable options in light of evaluation and
discussions.
The next steps—the actual selection and detailed analysis of one of these solutions
to determine whether it is actually the option of choice—would go beyond what is generally
considered to be part of the scope of the waste audit.
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Were waste audits to be required, there would be two primary types of industries to
which the requirement could most readily be applied. First, the requirement could be
imposed on all industries that produce large volumes of hazardous wastes or highly toxic
hazardous wastes (e.g., within the organic chemical manufacturing industry,
epichlorohydrin manufacture, 1,1,1-trichloroethane, or vinyl chloride manufacture). This
would include some of the largest facilities, many of which may be well controlled now, on
the basis that a small percentage reduction could still make a significant difference in the
total volumes of waste generated. It is likely that many or most of these facilities already
have a comprehensive auditing program.
Another type of industry group to which such a requirement might be applied
would be an industry characterized by large numbers of smaller facilities, significant
resemblance in operations, and the generation of large volumes of highly toxic wastes. A
principal example would be the electroplating industry (SIC code 3471).
Since it is not possible to determine ahead of time what actions companies would
take on the basis of mandatory waste audits, it is not possible to anticipate what reductions
in the volume or toxicity of wastes would be achieved as a result. Certainly some
reductions would be achieved—most particularly in those plants that would have chosen to
undertake such audits on a voluntary basis. Further, the kinds of changes which would
result from carrying out the recommendations of such audits would be unlikely to have
perverse side effects, such as intermedia pollution transfers.
So long as there is no specific requirement to achieve reduction or recycling levels
found possible on the basis of the audit, companies would only act in circumstances where
they saw benefits in terms of reduced liability, reduced disposal or compliance costs, or
reduced raw material requirements. These conditions are analogous to those that would
lead to action by generators under the technical assistance programs (see below).
While the direct costs of waste audits for industry are not extremely high (on
average $10,000 to $20,000 for an uncomplicated facility), requiring industry to carry out
waste audits could have some other detrimental effects. A crucial element in the success
and usefulness of such audits is the commitment of management to their value. Where
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management has committed to carrying out a waste audit in order to identify waste
minimization opportunities, the probability of effective use of the results in redesigning
plant operations or waste management is increased. If waste audits were imposed as an
external regulatory requirement, this commitment would often be lacking.
While waste audits are less comprehensive in scope and objective than a complete
environmental auditing program, EPA believes that the final guidance adopted by the
Agency for environmental auditing (51 FR 25004, July 9, 1986) is appropriate for waste
audits as well: "Because environmental auditing systems have been widely adopted on a
voluntary basis in the past, and because audit quality depends to a large degree upon
genuine management commitment to the program and its objectives, auditing should remain
a voluntary activity."
Primary equity considerations for industry would argue that audit efforts carried out
before the institution of such a requirement could be credited. Otherwise, States would
have a greater concern that existing voluntary programs would be undercut, and that
industry might be less interested in cooperating with the States to reduce pollution as a
result.
Implementation costs for the Federal government would be limited if the only
requirement were that all facilities undertake an environmental audit. The only
development, implementation, or enforcement costs for government would be the cost of
notifying all generators of the requirement and ensuring that audits are completed.
Substantial additional costs would be incurred if a decision were made to subsidize waste
audits for small quantity generators, or if EPA were to decide to analyze audit results in any
way.
Requiring a waste audit of all generators would probably require additional
legislative authority, although it might be argued that authority already exists under Section
SofTSCA.
Recommendations on the use of required management practices: While all of the
options discussed under this section would have positive effects on waste minimization and
are therefore desirable as part of a waste minimization strategy, the Agency believes that
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many of their goals can be reached through voluntary adoption of the measures, that
mandatory requirements would add little to the effectiveness of each measure, and that such
requirements would entail significant enforcement costs. Where voluntary compliance with
this type of action is not likely (such as in voluntary segregation of wastes for recycling), it
would be most feasible to couple adoption of the option with the adoption of a broader
performance standard program.
Other Options Identified by EPA
Other options for waste minimization identified by the Agency include activities that
may already exist in some form within Agency programs. Although existing Agency
authority may be adequate, development of any of these activities as part of a new waste
minimization program would often require significant increases in program resources and
deliberate redirection of activities toward specific objectives of waste minimization. Among
the additional options identified by EPA are (1) development of a significant technical
assistance effort to promote and explain waste minimization and (2) revision of government
procurement practices to avoid unnecessary discrimination against recycled products and to
support actively the development of markets in recycled commodities.
Technical assistance programs: EPA's current role in developing technical
assistance programs to promote waste minimization is one of facilitating and coordinating
with the States to make State efforts more productive. State programs attempt to accelerate
the dissemination of information on waste minimizing technologies and practices to waste
generators and TSD facilities. Other State activities offer financial assistance to generators
to support investment in waste reduction or recycling technology which the generators
might not otherwise undertake. Despite the strong existing incentives for waste
minimization discussed earlier in this report, EPA's role could be considerably expanded
into an active, aggressive, and sustained program of technical information. An expanded
EPA support role could accelerate development of existing State programs, encourage the
initiative of new waste minimization programs in the remaining States, and improve
coordination of State activities by providing those centralized services which would make
efforts of many States more productive and minimize unnecessary duplication of States'
efforts. An expanded technical assistance program appears to be the strongest option
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Evaluation of Waste Minimization Options
available to promote waste minimization, especially in the near term. The program's
purpose would be to encourage firms to include affirmative waste minimization options into
their hazardous waste management planning and, where necessary, to provide access to
technical information and assistance, and to encourage the development of markets for
recyclers and recycled materials.
To support this program, EPA could develop a computerized information system on
waste minimization which would be accessible by the States. Such a data base could
alleviate problems in several areas of concern to States and generators alike. Its categories
of information could include:
• Current literature on waste minimization technology: Some of the
periodicals of potential interest are already accessible on commercial
data bases. This is one source of information on waste minimization
technology, but other sources might include published and
unpublished local, State, or Federal government documents.
Documents could be key worded around pertinent waste
minimization topics.
• Indices of current and planned research programs: It is often
extremely difficult to identify useful research programs and projects.
Putting State, Federal, and private research programs on one data
base would greatly facilitate access to emerging information.
• Cross tabulation of State/Federal activities: This aspect of the data
base could help transfer information rapidly among States, cutting
down duplication of effort and expanding the awareness of the most
successful waste minimization approaches.
An expanded EPA technical information program could directly increase technical
resources to industries previously targeted by several State programs. Research studies on
technology, technology transfer, multistate market analyses for waste recycling and
treatment, and economic analysis of commonly encountered barriers to increased waste
minimization could also be conducted.
Appropriate target industries would depend, to a significant extent, on the needs of
the individual States. Generally, however, the focus would be on small and medium-sized
facilities (though not necessarily small quantity generators). Furthermore, many States
have similar industrial environmental problems. Electroplaters, paint manufacturers,
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Evaluation of Waste Minimization Options
printing operations, dry cleaners, and organic dye and pigment manufacturers could all
benefit from a technical assistance program.
It would be difficult to determine what reductions in volumes or toxicity would
result from an active technical assistance program. But some of the industries listed above
(e.g., electroplaters and pesticide manufacturers) generate highly toxic waste streams, and
the generators who would benefit from such a program would often be those with
inadequate controls.
One critical benefit of technical assistance is that it can be started immediately and
can show at least some benefits within months of enactment. This may be of critical
importance in the initial stages of the land disposal restrictions, as generators begin to make
long-term commitments to hazardous waste management. Many who would otherwise opt
for waste minimization might instead commit to some other option, such as onsite
treatment
The principal drawback of a large scale commitment to technical assistance is that it
is a departure from past EPA practice, which has been traditionally oriented around the
promulgation and enforcement of regulations. While past experience with technical
assistance programs and other nonregulatory approaches to pollution control have often
been unsuccessful, there are several important reasons why a high-visibility technical
assistance effort, if sustained over the critical next five to ten years, could produce
substantial results:
• It would not be moving against industry's natural intentions: The
program would be promoting and expediting a trend that already has
strong economic momentum within industry.
• It would not be an independent effort: The program would directly
supplement the existing regulatory programs to which Congress has
already committed the Agency.
It would work primarily through the States: EPA's role would be in
coordination, and provision of resources, guidance, and
computerized information. EPA would not be in a position of
engaging directly in local contacts.
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Procurement Practices
Government procurement programs may provide a means to create additional
demand for products made with less hazardous materials. This option would involve
establishing procurement regulations or guidelines to encourage the following:
• Additional recycling of waste materials in certain types of products;
and
• Greater emphasis on waste minimization in the manufacture of
particular products based on the existing authority of RCRA Section
6002 (Procurement) which provides authority for general
procurement which is limited to Federal agencies. The object would
be to avoid needless discrimination against recycled materials (such
as currently exists through provisions requiring the use of virgin
materials, rather than materials equivalent to virgin material
specifications). It would also actively promote (though it could not
require) government acquisition of recycled materials. This would
have the effect of legitimizing a market for recycled materials.
In those instances where a Federal preference for a recycled product may make the
product economically viable, EPA should work with agencies that are in the best position to
create such markets. For example, the Department of Defense (DOD) has the largest
procurement operation in the country. It might be possible in cooperation with EPA to help
establish a program whereby DOD might establish a preference to procure recycled
commodities.
Although DOD is currently in the process of developing a comprehensive waste
minimization strategy, thereby providing an opportunity for EPA to coordinate joint
development of a procurement strategy focused on Federal agencies, development of such a
strategy would still be a long and complex process. Significant research and analytical
efforts would be needed to determine the extent to which recycled materials could substitute
for virgin materials for various government requirements. Moreover, analyses of the
approximate volumes of wastes associated with the various types of products purchased
and used by Federal agencies (e.g., printed circuit boards, which are purchased in large
quantities by DOD) would be needed to establish a baseline against which reductions in
waste could be measured.
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Development of a policy that focuses on the manufacturing process rather than on
the material characteristics of the product would certainly have difficulties in data collection
and development of a baseline, and would be difficult to enforce. Such an effort to change
the purchasing habits of the Federal government is nevertheless consistent with the national
policy of minimizing wastes, and should probably be given significant priority over the
long term.
Recommendations on the use of other options for waste minimization: Both
options discussed in this section appear desirable and feasible. The adoption of technical
assistance programs, however, seems particularly desirable in the near term. It appears to
be the only approach available that can promote significant additional waste minimization
action without large additional costs or years of delay. It also has the flexibility to adapt to
changing hazardous waste management program and waste minimization needs.
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Chapter Four
RECOMMENDATIONS
The preceding chapters have summarized EPA's current knowledge about the
generation and recycling of hazardous wastes, reviewed State efforts to minimize waste,
and evaluated several options for Federal waste minimization initiatives. This chapter
provides an overview of a program that EPA believes will provide the most productive
long-term strategy for waste minimization. Most of the discrete recommendations in this
chapter have been discussed in the previous chapters. The objective of this discussion is to
show how these elements, taken together, compose a program that increases the potential
for waste reduction and recycling.
EPA believes that waste minimization must be implemented as a general policy
throughout the hazardous waste management system and, ultimately, more broadly
throughout all of EPA's pollution control programs. In the short term, efforts within the
Office of Solid Waste should focus on the development of needed data on hazardous waste
management trends and issues, set up lines of communication to the States and to industry,
and develop needed technical assistance tools to enhance industry's natural incentives to
reduce hazardous waste generation and enhance recycling. It is also necessary to begin the
process of setting priorities for future waste minimization programs so as to respond most
aggressively to problems that cannot be addressed adequately by the existing elements of
the waste treatment program or by EPA programs with jurisdiction over the other
environmental media.
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In the design of a waste minimization strategy, it is particularly important to
distinguish between short-term and long-term objectives. As has been stressed throughout
this report, the nation's waste generation and waste treatment patterns will be in a state of
flux over the next several years. During that same period, firms will make waste
management commitments that may be difficult to change—if the Agency fails to act
aggressively, it may miss a unique opportunity to make source reduction and recycling a
more widely-adopted industrial strategy for hazardous waste management.
Over the short-term, waste minimization efforts must concentrate on data
development, on information transfer, and on any and all methods available for increasing
industry's awareness of waste minimization as a constructive and economically-efficient
approach to hazardous waste management. The Agency must also lay the analytical ground
work for deciding how and where it can focus source reduction and recycling to ease
treatment and disposal capacity shortages. Over the longer term, waste minimization
priorities can turn increased attention to ways of reducing or recycling wastes that cause the
greatest environmental risk. If long-term controls targeted at particular environmental
problems are found necessary to protect human health and the environment, these programs
will demand considerable technical insight into waste generation processes, disposal
options, and health and environmental damage as analyzed from a multimedia perspective.
One mechanism to address problems at this level could indeed include performance
standards similar to the engineering controls already in place in the air and water programs
(Air Emissions, New Source Performance Standards, Effluent Guidelines), but, as has
been emphasized in Chapter Three, performance standards for waste minimization raise a
number of troublesome issues and may not be warranted.
Writing waste minimization performance standards would involve the Agency in the
internal operation of industrial processes to a far greater extent than has been true in other
environmental programs. Difficulties would include (1) protecting the confidentiality of
proprietary processes and production specifications, (2) ensuring adequate flexibility in
standards to meet variations in plant capacity, age, design, and production goals from firm
to firm, and (3) maintaining reasonable process efficiency and profitability, consistent with
waste minimization objectives. In all these areas, it can be argued that market forces are
more efficient than prescriptive regulations.
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As has been emphasized in Chapter Three, writing efficient process standards for a
broad range of industries would also be at least as difficult an undertaking as developing
New Source Performance Standards or Effluent Guidelines. Like the other regulatory
programs, the cycle of writing and implementing the initial round of regulations would
most likely require seven to ten years to complete. Such a major commitment would be
expensive and would have to produce environmental results commensurate with its
investment The data are not yet available to determine whether or not this is possible.
Equally important is the issue of timing. Assuming that Congress were to mandate
a command-and-control approach to waste minimization in the near future, it would then
take several years to write and issue standards. Judging by the schedule of the effluent
guidelines program, or even the more rapid HSWA land disposal restriction program,
large-scale implementation of such a program would probably not yield observable
reductions in waste generation until after the year 2000. As noted already, they would have
no value in alleviating short-term capacity constraints.
Finally, there is the issue of equity. Economic incentives for minimizing wastes
have been particularly strong over the last five years, and many firms have already
implemented process modifications or taken other measures to reduce or recycle the amount
of waste they generate. Some plants are approaching practical limits for reducing or
recycling the wastes created by their production, but existing information suggests that
progress in this direction is uneven across industries and firms. Stringent requirements to
minimize wastes across the board, such as by a fixed percentage across multiple industrial
sectors, might therefore be grossly inequitable, penalizing firms that have already
minimized their wastes, rewarding those that have not. It is therefore important to define
correctly the starting point from which waste minimization programs should begin. The
Agency must develop a general consensus about how to define an equitable baseline from
which waste minimization progress can be measured.
Given the legal, technical, and scheduling problems inherent in performance
standards and the need to act quickly to establish stronger waste minimization policies, it is
clear that additional types of waste minimization options must be considered, especially in
the short term. This report has therefore described a range of nonregulatory controls,
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including various positive incentive programs, such as information clearinghouses,
technology transfer programs, waste audits, and various other types of technical support.
Many of these appear promising, but they too have their drawbacks. To make a
significant impact on waste generation, such programs would have to be intensive and well
directed. As a regulatory Agency, EPA has never attempted to mount a significant technical
assistance effort within any major environmental program. Although the Agency has had
experience with nonregulatory programs in the past (such as the transportation planning
requirements in the air program, wetlands protection efforts, the Buy Quiet Program, the
Chesapeake Bay and Great Lakes Programs, the agricultural lands program, and areawide
wastewater treatment planning), these have tended to be peripheral to the major regulatory
programs and have often met with mixed success due to lack of sustained commitment, or
because their environmental goals were ambiguous.
The Agency believes that nonregulatory options will be among the most efficient
ways to reach waste minimization goals, but intensive implementation of a strategy relying
on nonregulatory approaches will demand strong support and direction from Congress. It
will also demand close cooperation with the States. Waste minimization is largely industry-
specific, and only the States have the close knowledge of local industry that would be
necessary to ensure successful implementation of nonregulatory programs. If adopted as
priorities by EPA, these programs would best be implemented through the States, with
EPA providing resources and technical capabilities.
EPA's Recommended Waste Minimization Strategy
EPA's most pressing initial needs are to obtain more accurate information on the
current status and trends of hazardous waste generation and management in the United
States and to initiate activities that will encourage immediate efforts by generators to
minimize wastes. Over the longer term, as the information on trends in waste generation
provides more insight into residual risks to human health and the environment, the Agency
can institute additional measures to minimize those wastes that still create a human health or
environmental hazard.
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The Agency has concluded that mandatory standards of performance and required
management practices are not feasible or desirable in the near term. If, after implementation
of other pertinent provisions of HSWA, the Agency determines that additional regulations
or other requirements are needed in order to protect human health and the environment, it
will then request additional authority from Congress. As noted below, EPA will report
back to Congress on this issue in December 1990, the earliest date at which it believes a
recommendation on the need for a mandatory waste minimization program could be made.
EPA does, however, plan to enhance its current waste minimization efforts as
discussed below in the context of a three point waste minimization strategy to which EPA
hereafter is committed.
The elements of this strategy are:
1. Information Gathering: Detailed data on industry's response to the
land disposal restrictions program and other existing waste
minimization incentives must be gathered in order to make a final
determination on the desirability and feasibility of performance
standards and required management practices.
2. A Core Waste Minimization Program: During the interval when the
new provisions of HSWA are taking effect, EPA will launch a
strong technical assistance and information transfer program through
the States to promote voluntary waste minimization in industry,
government, and the non-profit sectors of the economy. It will also
work with Federal agencies to encourage procurement practices that
promote the use of recycled and reclaimed materials.
3. Longer Term Options: Based on an analysis of the new data
gathered under (1) above, performance standards and other
mandatory requirements can be imposed, if necessary, once the
HSWA amendments have taken full effect and their impacts on
waste generation have been assessed.
Information Gathering
Agency actions to encourage waste minimization, whether through voluntary means
or through future regulatory action, must be based on a full understanding of the present
state of hazardous waste generation and management and of how that system is evolving
under the many pressures to which it is now being subjected. The general patterns and
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trends of hazardous waste management systems are becoming clearer, but past trends may
not persist through the next four to six years as HSWA's new provisions take effect, and
as industry seeks to control the potential financial liabilities associated with hazardous
waste management.
Baseline and trends data: The best data available to the Agency on the amount and
content of hazardous wastes were developed by surveys conducted in 1981 and 1983.
These data are rapidly becoming out of date and are known to be of uneven quality because
of reporting errors and the small and variable sample sizes from which information was
extrapolated. They must be supplemented with new data documenting the changes that
have already begun and will continue to progress over the next few years.
In order to make a final determination on the desirability and feasibility of
mandatory waste minimization actions, the Agency must be able to document unresolved
environmental problems for which such a new regulatory programs would be the
appropriate response. One example of an unresolved problem would be the continued
generation of waste streams for which treatment and disposal capacity remain inadequate
even after land disposal restrictions have been in place for a year or more. Another might
be a determination that certain types of hazardous waste treatment do not, in practice,
adequately protect human health and the environment.
The types of data needed include detailed baseline information on the volumes and
toxicity of wastes generated, trends data on source reduction and recycling, trends data on
treatment and disposal capacity, and analyses of the health and environmental impacts of
treatment and disposal practices. No new statutory authority is needed to gather this
additional data. One potential source will be the biennial reports, which will be upgraded to
improve the consistency and coverage of the information submitted. Other sources include
a possible new generator and the 1986 TSD survey, information developed by EPA
programs outside of the Office of Solid Waste (such as under TSCA), and the reporting
requirements that may be enacted under amendments to CERCLA.
Data to support technical assistance and information transfer: Much of the same
data can be used to set priorities for technical assistance programs to promote source
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reduction and recycling programs, targeting them where they will be most successful in
reducing threats to human health and the environment. However, more detailed
information on the cost and effectiveness of specific waste minimization techniques will
also be needed for the targeted industries. This information gathering program will enable
EPA to develop an accurate profile of waste management trends and practices and to
develop performance standards or other requirements selectively as needed.
Data to support possible new regulatory programs: If the trends data demonstrates
the need for mandatory measures, more detailed information will be needed, as it is in any
regulatory program, to support the development, implementation, and enforcement of new
regulatory actions. This additional information would be developed selectively, and would
build on the baseline data already established.
EPA believes that existing statutory authority is sufficient to gather the additional
data on which long-term waste minimization planning will depend. Based upon the policy
and objectives for RCRA established in Section 1003, the Agency recommends the
immediate development of a data gathering program to undertake the following general
activities:
• Develop baseline data on the volumes and detailed characteristics of
wastes generated by specific sizes and categories of firms, and on
the processes that generate them.
• Develop baseline data on the recycling, treatment, storage, and
disposal of these wastes, including both engineering and cost
elements.
• Develop trends data on the above.
• Characterize the human health and environmental risks associated
with the generation and management (including disposal) of wastes
that may pose significant impacts.
A more detailed listing of data needs and potential sources appears on Table 4-1.
EPA is in the process of developing a detailed strategy for acquiring and interpreting this
information.
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Table 4-1
Data Needs and Potential Sources
for Future Waste Minimization Analysis
Data Needs
Potential Sources
1. Baseline information on waste volume and mass
fraction, and constituents and constituent mass
fractions, of waste streams by industry cate-
gory, firm size, and geographic area. Figures are
needed on the basis of unit production
throughput and/or input.
2. Baseline information with respect to recycling,
treatment, and disposal practices for the waste
streams and the constituents mentioned in
#1 above.
3. Cost figures by waste stream, volume and geo-
graphic area for alternative treatment and disposal
practices. This would consist of cost information
if provided by the generator or price information
if treatment and disposal services were purchased
commercially.
4. [Recycling only] Data on market prices of the materials
recycled and market prices of virgin materials
for which recycled materials substitute, or,
alternatively, charges paid to have the waste
removed, batch tolling agreements, or direct
cost of onsite reclamation and recycling.
5. Trend lines for all the above figures over a two-
to four-year period.
6. Changes in manufacturing or waste manage-
ment practices which result in any changes noted
in trend lines.
7. Potential exposure figures, to the extent feasible,
for selected wastes as well as figures for changes
in the volumes generated or in methods or levels
of recycling, treatment, or disposal.
8. Toxicity and Risk: updated and expanded hazard
assessments and dose-response estimates for con-
stituents in selected waste streams.
9. Environmental Impact Assessments for selected
wastes with respect to the identification of recycling,
treatment, and disposal practices.
10. Consolidated human health and environmental
risk assessments - comprehensive and
multi media.
• New Generator Survey
Biennial Report
Section 8 of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA)
including information from TSCA's proposed compre-
hensive Assessment Information Rule (CAIR),
and/or
The proposed Toxic Chemical Inventory in Title III of the
pending Superfund Reauthorization Act.
Same sources as listed for #1.
Current Treatment, Storage and Disposal
(TSD) Survey.
TSD Survey.
New Generator Survey
TSCA Section 8.
Surveys on commodity prices by the Dept.
of Commerce.
New Generator Survey.
New Recyclers Survey.
Use all the sources mentioned above.
Biennial Report.
Proposed CERCLA mass balance data.
TSCA Section 8.
Exposure assessements from EPA's Integrated
Environmental Management Division (IEMD)
Regional Hazardous Waste Pilot Project.
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA)
Risk-Cost Analysis Model.
Data developed by the EPA Office of Research and
Development (ORD)
Case studies developed by ORD.
Modeling and analytical studies developed
by ORD or OSW.
Synthesis of data from all the above sources.
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A Core Waste Minimization Program
Many economic incentives are already influencing industry to reduce, reuse, and
recycle hazardous wastes. As noted in this report, these include current compliance
requirements for environmental regulations, rising management costs, concern for future
liability, and rising costs for raw materials.
As the land disposal restrictions come into force, and costs for treatment and
disposal of wastes increase, these existing incentives for waste minimization will be
intensified. But because of informational, technical, and economic barriers, many
generators may not act on economically-beneficial opportunities to minimize wastes. As
discussed in Chapter Three, EPA believes that, given the current information base, the
most effective immediate action the Agency and the States can take is to help generators
overcome those barriers. Several States have already devoted considerable resources to
such waste minimization programs (see Chapter Two). Although EPA does currently
provide some support for technical assistance to the States, funding is limited.
Recommendations: The following short-term activities should be adopted as a core
waste minimization program:
• EPA should develop and publish an Agency policy statement on
waste minimization including informal guidance to generators
concerning what constitutes waste minimization under the reporting
and certification requirements of RCRA. To the extent possible, this
guidance should be specific to particular industrial sectors and
processes.
• EPA should substantially expand its role in providing for technical
and informational assistance to generators, including small quantity
generators. Because the States have more direct contact with the
generators and hence have more awareness of generators' needs and
problems, EPA's primary role should be to support and encourage
the States in the development of their programs.
• In the event that mandatory controls are needed in the near term to
control the volume or toxicity of wastes generated by particular
industries, EPA would use the authority that currently exists under
Section 6 of the Toxic Substances Control Act.
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An appropriate EPA sponsored technical assistance effort could
include:
— Assistance to specific States to initiate and develop programs for
providing direct assistance to generators (e.g., using waste
audits, dissemination of technical information, applied research
on new applications of existing technology). Special attention
would be given to the unique needs of small quantity generators.
— Highlight ongoing research and development and economic
feasibility studies that might serve an entire region or have
regional application (e.g., central treatment and recovery of
electroplating sludges).
— Development of an information system on waste minimization,
accessible by the States, including the following types of
information on waste reduction and recycling:
(a) Technical literature and data on waste minimization
organized by waste stream, industrial process, and
industrial sector,
(b) Status and interim or final results of current or planned
waste minimization R&D projects carried out under State
or Federal auspices;
(c) Economic data and analyses on technology investment
costs and recovery periods.
— Reciprocally elements of an expanded EPA supported State
technical assistance program are expected to include such
elements as:
(a) Technical information resource collection consisting of
current literature, newsletters, directories of available
recyclers and information hotlines.
(b) Technology transfer programs that directly assist
individual generators or selected industry groups with
onsite waste minimization audits, onsite needs
assessment, and planning and implementation of focused
seminar training activities.
(c) Information planning and development activities to fulfill
generators' needs for technical analysis—prerequisite
for new investments in research and development or use
of alternative technologies.
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(d) Administrative support and coordination of State-wide
research to identify industries and waste streams creating
the largest local hazardous waste problems as well as to
identify and analyze economic and institutional barriers
to waste minimization innovation.
(e) Administrative support and coordination of State-EPA
supported waste minimization demonstration or research
projects in cooperation with State universities and
specific industry groups.
(0 Monitoring and coordination for planning and
development of a centralized national information
collection and dissemination system.
In order that the technical assistance program can remain a long-term responsive
and dynamic aspect of EPA's waste minimization project, the Agency should establish a
formal process of coordination with the States to ensure a continuing and responsive
technical assistance and outreach effort over the long term.
In addition, EPA will continue to examine specific elements of this "core" waste
minimization program, and make recommendations, if needed, for legislative changes to
the existing waste minimization requirements as part of the next RCRA reauthorization.
Possible options to consider would be modifications to the existing certification
requirements including:
• Prohibiting, where appropriate, certification of certain types of
waste management practices as waste minimization.
• Providing, where appropriate, formal guidance as to what may be
certified as waste minimization. Such guidance could apply
generally or to specific industrial sectors. Flexibility for appeals and
exceptions must also be provided. (In any case, where a generator
was not carrying out one of the waste minimization activities that
had been listed as certified, the generator could specify an alternative
waste minimization activity, and a rationale for certifying it as waste
minimization. Unless the Agency were to place the activity on the
list of proscribed practices, it would have to accept the generator's
self-certification).
• Requiring generators who have not undertaken any of the approved
waste minimization activities, but who certify that there is no
economically practicable alternative to their present waste reduction
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and management practices, to provide a written justification of such
certification.
Longer Term Options
Only after the land disposal restrictions and other principal provisions of the HSWA
go into effect, and after EPA has developed the needed additional data on hazardous waste
generation and management, will it be possible to assess whether standards of performance
(including phasedown permits) or required management practices (such as waste audits) are
necessary to achieve additional reductions in the volume or toxicity of wastes. The Agency
therefore recommends that consideration of new mandatory programs be deferred until after
such data can be gathered and analyzed, and proposes to report back to Congress on the
desirability and feasibility of prescriptive approaches two years after the first of the land
disposal restrictions has been fully implemented. Excluding the possibility of a one-year
case-by-case extension (renewable for one additional year), the first of the land disposal
restrictions will be fully implemented in November of 1988; EPA will therefore make its
next formal report on this subject in December of 1990.
Recommendations: The following longer term activities should be adopted to
augment the core waste minimization program consistent with the findings of additional
technical and policy analysis:
• EPA recommends that any decision on whether to require the
adoption of performance standards or specific waste management
practices to bring about waste minimization be deferred until there
has been time to evaluate trends and residual problems evident in the
data.
i
EPA will report to Congress on the desirability of prescriptive
approaches to waste minimization two years after the first of the land
1 d)sposal restrictions have been fully implemented. Since, with
possible two-year variances, the first of the land bans will be fully
implemented in November of 1988, EPA will make its next formal
report to Congress in December of 1990. This will provide EPA
with an opportunity to review changes in waste generation and
management patterns.
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Recommendations
Conclusion
EPA still has much to learn about waste minimization and recognizes that the
cooperation of private and public waste generators will be invaluable as it moves toward the
development of sound long-term policy. It also believes, however, that the incentives and
trends within the hazardous waste management system are unmistakable, and that the
program presented here comprises the most positive and constructive steps that can be
taken at this time. Aggressive action in favor of waste minimization is clearly needed, but a
major regulatory program—at least for the present—does not seem desirable or feasible.
Incentives for waste minimization are already strong, so EPA must capitalize on
them. Most often lacking is access to the information that will demonstrate the economic
benefits of waste minimization to industry, overcome logistical problems, and help develop
creative new approaches. This can be provided by a strong technical assistance and
information transfer effort, which can achieve through voluntary means what would be
inefficient and possibly counterproductive to attempt through regulation. Unfortunately,
non-regulatory programs have often failed at EPA for lack of statutory or regulatory
deadlines, and institutional advocacy. For such a program to work, it must be given strong
organizational support within the Agency.
EPA is willing to make this commitment, and seeks support from Congress to
ensure its success.
Environmental Prolec
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