time it is generated until its ultimate dis-
posal, in effect "from cradle to grave." In
practical terms, this means regulating a very
large number of hazardous waste handlers.
In August 1983, EPA had received notifica-
tion from almost 52,000 major generators,
13,000 transporters, and almost 9,000 treat-
ment, storage or disposal facilities (Table 3).
to
Generators 51,463
Transporters 12,598
Treatment, Storage, Disposal Facilities* 8,906
*Some facilities perform more than one function.
Not all facilities actually processed hazardous
waste in regulated quantities.
The RCRA regulations were developed
over several years and published in phases.
In the first phase EPA identified those solid
wastes that were "hazardous" and es-
tablished various administrative require-
ments for the three categories of hazardous
waste handlers: generators, transporters,
and owners or operators of treatment, stor-
age and disposal facilities. This was in May
I960, when EPA published regulations which
defined hazardous waste, and established
recordkeeping and reporting requirements
for owners and operators. In November I960,
the RCRA regulations became effective.
In the second phase, technical standards
were set in January 1981 for design and safe
operation of the various types of treatment,
storage, and disposal facilities. These are
the standards which will serve as the basis
for issuing permits to such facilities. At that
time EPA published technical (permitting)
standards for incinerators and treatment
and storage facilities, along with financial
responsibility and liability insurance require-
ments for all facilities. Next, in February
I98I, EPA promulgated temporary technical
(permitting) standards for new land disposal
facilities. In July I982, EPA published final
technical (permitting) standards for both
new and existing land disposal facilities.
Each set of technical standards became
final six months after publication, and EPA
now plans to "fine tune" the hazardous
waste regulations to meet specific circum-
stances, making additions and refinements
to the existing regulations wherever practi-
cable.
EPA/State Programs. Now that the regula-
tory core of the hazardous waste program is
complete, EPA and the states can begin
issuing permits to hazardous waste treat-
ment, storage, and disposal facilities as
soon as EPA authorizes their programs.
Issuing permits is essential to making the
regulatory program work, since it is through
the permitting process that EPA or a state
actually applies the technical standards to
facilities. In reviewing a permit application,
the waste handling process is evaluated,
taking into consideration site-specific factors
as well as the nature of the wastes being
handled.
At present, facilities which were in ex-
istence in November 1980 (when the first
hazardous waste regulations became effec-
tive) are operating under interim permits.
The owners/operators obtained these by
notifying EPA of their hazardous waste ac-
tivities and applying for permits.
EPA issued the first RCRA permit on Octo-
ber I, I98I, to Oil and Solvent Process Co., a
new storage facility in Colorado. The first
waste incinerator permit was issued by EPA
on October 4, I982, to Pennwalt Corp., a
new treatment facility in Kentucky. In April
I983, Mississippi became the first state to
be fully authorized to run its own permitting
program under RCRA. EPA is now calling
for full permit applications from these ex-
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isting facilites. Current plans are to issue
RCRA permits to all treatment, storage, and
disposal facilities as expeditiously as possi-
ble.
RCRA's success in improving hazardous
waste management practices in this country
depends heavily on the cooperative efforts
of waste generating industries. If some
companies fail to meet environmental stan-
dards, vigorous state and federal enforce-
ment of the regulations can compensate.
RCRA provides EPA and the states with a
full complement of enforcement tools for
bolstering compliance with the hazardous
waste regulations.
Frequent compliance inspections are the
cornerstone of RCRA enforcement efforts.
Where these inspections reveal noncom-
pliance, EPA and the states have a range of
administrative and legal remedies. The ad-
ministrative remedies include issuance of
information-gathering letters, warning let-
ters, complaints, and administrative orders
to take remedial steps. Legal remedies in-
clude both civil and criminal actions, which
can result in penalties of up to $1 million or
imprisonment of up to five years.
The pace of inspections for compliance by
the states and the federal government
almost doubled from FY 1981 to FY 1982
(Table 4). Some 25 percent of all hazardous
waste producers and handlers in the United
States were covered in the first two years of
the program. All 76,000 of them should be
inspected in another two years, as addition-
al states take over more and more of the
task.
Action
Compliance inspections
Warning letters
Complaints
Final orders requiring remedies
Penalties
Administrative ("monitoring")
Orders ("imminent hazard")
Civil cases referred to Department
of Justice
Criminal cases referred to
Department of Justice
Sec*
3008
3008
3008
3008
3013
7003
FY I98I
6,56!
475
I57
no data
$1.2 M
1
1
12
FY I982
ll,855
982
226
140
$1.6 M
6
4
11
Total
18,416
1,457
383
140
$2.8 M
7
5
23
3008
16
'(Section of RCRA authorizing this kind of action)
State Programs. Congress intended that the
states eventually assume responsibility for
the RCRA hazardous waste program, and
EPA has authorized states to implement
their own hazardous waste programs when
State Programs that control nonhazardous
waste disposal practices must be based on
federal guidelines and employ federal
criteria for facility classification. The criteria
permit the states to define acceptable and
unacceptable disposal facilities in terms of
effects on surface and groundwater, air
quality, and public safety. Facilities that al-
low open burning, for example, or facilities
sited in wetlands, flood plains, the habitats
of endangered species, or in recharge zones
for principal sources of local drinking water
are generally determined to'be unaccept-
able. Such facilities will eventually have to
be phased out through state control efforts.
The states have responded strongly to
federal encouragement under RCRA in the
nonhazardous waste management field.
Almost all states now have EPA-approved,
or partially approved, solid waste man-
agement plans or have submitted plans for
EPA approval or review.
Of the more than 400 million tons of in-
dustrial solid waste produced each year, we
do not yet know what percent can be char-
acterized as hazardous to human health and
the environment. The wastes are generated
by the full range of major American in-
dustries, many coming from the chemical
and primary metals industries, but a signifi-
cant portion from the electroplating, petrole-
um refining, and textile, rubber, and plastics
manufacturing industries (Table 2) as well.
Chemical and allied products
Paper and allied products
Fabricated metal products
Petroleum & coal products
Transportation equipment
Primary metals industries
Electric & electronic equipment
Non-manufacturing
All other
62%
3%
5%
5%
3%
10%
3%
5%
4%
SOURCE: Booz, Allen and Hamilton. Hazardous
Waste Generation and Commercial Hazardous
Waste Management Capacity. (Unpublished re-
port to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agen-
cy, I980.)
The Federal Role The congressional man-
date under RCRA for federal regulation of
hazardous waste—its generation, transport,
treatment, storage, and disposal—resulted
in perhaps the most comprehensive regula-
tions EPA has been called upon to develop.
RCRA required EPA to establish a system
for controlling hazardous waste from the
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. i H S
Unfortunately, many of the materials—
both hazardous and nonhazardous—
discarded over recent decades have en-
dured wherever and however they may
have been disposed of, often with negative
consequences to the environment. The Love
Canal, the Valley of the Drums, and Times
Beach are well-known examples of places
severely damaged from careless hazardous
waste disposal—all occurring before the im-
plementation of the national regulatory pro-
gram under RCRA.
EPA has identified some 17,000 problem
hazardous waste sites. Many of these are
associated with contaminated ground-
water—the source of drinking water for
about half of the U.S. population. This often
results from poorly situated or poorly op-
erated landfills or from wastes deposited
carelessly in pits, ponds, and lagoons. Im-
proper handling and disposal of wastes has
also caused other kinds of environmental
damage—such as fires, explosions, pollu-
tion of surface water and air—as well as
serious threats to human health by
poisoning via the food chain or by direct
contact.
One of RCRA's goals is to encourage states
to develop comprehensive programs so that
communities can better manage non-
hazardous solid waste. This process is well
under way. State programs are now im-
proving municipal waste disposal practices
throughout the Nation, while at the same
time they encourage resource recovery,
recycling, and energy conservation.
The Federal Role in this effort has been to
establish guidelines for states to develop
waste management plans, to design criteria
for classifying land disposal facilities in
terms of environmental soundness, and to
publish a national inventory of unacceptable
disposal facilities. In undertaking these
federal responsibilities, EPA has:
• In July I979,published guidelines for
identifying regions and agencies to deve-
lop state solid waste mangement plans.
• In September I979, published criteria for
classifying land disposal facilities in terms
of environmental protection.
• In May 1981, April I982, and May I983,
published and updated a national in-
ventory of open dumps and land disposal
facilities that fail to meet minimal environ-
mental criteria.
they qualify. States may apply for and re-
ceive interim authorization by setting reg-
ulations that are "substantially equivalent
to" EPA's regulations. Within two years
after the first-phase RCRA regulations had
appeared, 35 states and territories had re-
ceived interim authorization. These state
programs include identification and listing
of hazardous wastes and requirements for
generators, transporters, and owners and
operators of treatment, storage, and dis-
posal facilities. By June 1983, seven states
—Georgia, North Carolina, Arkansas, Texas,
Mississippi, South Carolina, and
Oklahoma—had received second-phase in-
terim authorization and thus could issue
permits to treatment, storage, and disposal
facilities.
To receive final authorization to operate
the entire RCRA hazardous waste program,
states must adopt regulations fully "equiva-
lent to" and "consistent with" federal stan-
dards, as was done by Mississippi. EPA
anticipates that a majority of states will
reach this final stage in the next two years.
EPA will continue to review state solid
waste management plans. This encourages
states to follow the federal guidelines for
nonhazardous waste disposal and to em-
ploy federal criteria for facility classification.
EPA's focus will be on expanding the scope
of the regulations. The Agency will, for ex-
ample, be listing new hazardous materials
to be controlled, addressing the burning of
hazardous waste in boilers, studying the
need for surveillance of small-quantity
generators, considering additional restric-
tions on the use of landfills, and judging re-
quirements for controlling air emissions
from hazardous waste facilities.
EPA is now working on regulatory impact
analyses of the existing regulations, con-
ducting studies of the major waste-
producing industries, and developing a way
that degree-of-hazard criteria might be in-
corporated into the regulatory program.
These efforts should help in avoiding both
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over-regulation and under-regulation, as the
RCRA rules for hazardous wastes are ad-
justed.
As RCRA is implemented, different kinds of
activities are required throughout the Na-
tion.
• The states are setting in place their own
nonhazardous and hazardous waste man-
agement programs;
• Improved waste mangement practices for
both kinds of solid wastes are getting un-
der way at the community level; and
• EPA is working on improving the
hazardous waste control system.
Citizens are participating in the de-
cisionmaking going on at each of those gov-
ernmental levels. Since there are indeed
many hard issues to be decided, public in-
volvement was encouraged by the Congress
and provided for in every step of RCRA's
implementation. This process is the begin-
ning of the answer to the original question
addressed by the legislation—how to dis-
pose safely of this Nation's huge volumes
of solid wastes. We have today the start of
a national waste management program.
Careless waste generation and disposal are
no longer easy. The new systems are begin-
ning to force waste reduction and recycling,
better use of technology, and wiser use of
natural resources.
Definition of
Hazardous
Waste
Exclusions
A solid waste
Not excluded from regulation
And either:
A listed hazardous waste
A mixture containing a listed hazard-
ous waste (with certain exceptions)
An unlisted waste possessing any of
four characteristics
These are not considered hazardous
wastes:
• Garbage - household
nicipal resource recovery wastes
residues
Certain chromium-containing wastes
As The Resource Conservation and Recov-
ery Act of 1976 (RCRA) begins to take shape
in actual programs, the work of Congress
can be seen. A problem of national
magnitude—how to safely dispose of this
country's huge volumes of municipal and
industrial solid waste—is now being firmly
addressed at federal, state, and community
levels.
RCRA and the first national solid waste
legislation* (which RCRA amends), author-
ized and funded programs that would pro-
vide federal research and development in
the solid waste field, and financial and tech-
nical assistance to state waste management
agencies. RCRA also required EPA to deve-
lop regulatory controls for those solid
wastes that are hazardous. These RCRA
programs are now beginning to actually
meet the goals set by Congress in estab-
lishing national solid waste legislation.
The goals are:
• to protect human health and the environ-
ment
• to reduce waste and conserve energy and
natural resources.
Every year, five to six billion metric tons of
solid waste are discarded in the United
States (Table I). These wastes range from
municipal garbage to industrial wastes that
contain complex, and sometimes hazardous,
substances. Solid wastes also include sew-
age sludge, agricultural refuse, demolition
wastes, and mining residues. Technically,
"solid" waste may also be liquids and gases
if containerized.
Waste Source Metric Tons (millions) % of Total
Municipal 177.5 3.1
Industrial 326—362 6.4
Utility 70 1.2
(Includes boiler ashes and
scrubber sludge, excludes
radioactive waste)
2,086
39.0
50.3
IOO.O
Mining/Milling
(Includes uranium tailings)
Agricultural 2,265-3,014
Total 4,924.5-5,709.5
**Source: JRB Associates.SoA'd Waste Data; A
Compilation of Statistics on Solid Waste Man-
agement within the United States. (Washington)
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1981. 73
pp.
*The first federal solid waste legislation was the
Solid Waste Disposal Act of 1965. Congress
amended the Act in order to reauthorize it in 1970
(as the Resource Recovery Act), in 1976, and is in
the process of doing so again in 1983. Congress
has also enacted minor amendments over the
years.
-------
Our environment has been degraded, and
our health threatened, by a multitude of
human activities initiated without regard to
long-range effects upon the life-supporting
properties, the economic uses, and the re-
creational values of water, air and land.
Recognizing this, Congress has enacted a
number of laws to protect life and the en-
vironment. These laws have led to signifi-
cant improvements in the environment in
many parts of the country. Nevertheless, the
task remaining is still great, as is the need
for constant vigilance against new environ-
mental assaults.
The United States Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) is responsible for executing
the federal laws aimed at protecting the en-
vironment. EPA was formed in 1970 to con-
solidate in one agency much of the federal
authority and expertise in controlling pollu-
tion and dealing with other threats to health
and the environment. Its activities affect
nearly every aspect of our lives. This leaflet
describes the activities of EPA and the
states under one of the federal environ-
mental laws.
U,S. Environments! Protection "Agency
Region i
John F Kennedy Bldg.
Boston, MA 02203
(617) 223-5186
Region 2
26 Federal Plaza
New York, NY 10007
(212) 264-2301
Region 3
6th and Walnut Sts.
Philadephia, PA I9I06
(215) 597-8131
Region 4
345 Courtland St N.E
Atlanta, GA 30365
(404) 88I-3454
Region 5
230 South Dearborn St.
Chicago, IL 60604
(312) 886-7579
1201 Elm Street
Dallas, TX 75270
(214) 767-2730
Region 7
324 East llth Street
Kansas City, MO 64I08
(8I6) 374-6529
Region 8
1860 Lincoln St.
Denver, CO 80295
(303) 837-2407
Region 9
215 Fremont St.
San Francisco, CA 94015
(415)974-7460
Region 10
1200 6th Avenue
Seattle, WA 98IOI
(206) 442-I352
State Waste Management Programs: Call
the Hotline for address and telephone num-
ber of your state program:
RCRA/Superfund Hotline (800) 424-9346 for
technical or regulatory information on pro-
grams.
Call the National Response Center: (800) 424-
8802 to report oil and hazardous substance
releases.
-------
United States
Environmer al Protector
Agency
September
1983
SW-967
U.S. Environmental Protection Agenc\
Region V, Lihrstv
?:-.0 South D-:£;-b:;;n Gli£vJt
Chicago, Illinois t»0604
4>EPA The Resource
Conservation and
Recovery Art
What It Is;
How It Works
.''r.! "! Frotort'o1] ,'•'."''
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