&EPA
United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
March 2004
EPA530-F-03-052
www.epa.gov/osw
for
        77)e Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is providing additional regulatory flexibility
    to states to use new technologies to manage municipal solid waste (MSW). This action aims
    to stimulate the development and use of safe, new alternative operational processes to
    landfill MSW.
    Action
       EPA's Criteria for Municipal Solid Waste Landfills (MSWLFs) establish the federal
    regulatory framework for managing municipal solid waste. The states base their EP A-
    approvedMSW programs on the Criteria. This action modifies the federal Criteria to
    allow EPA-approved states to issue research, development, and demonstration (RD&D)
    permits toMSW landfills.
       State directors have the discretion to provide variances for run-on control systems,
    liquid restrictions, and the final cover permeability for closure and post-closure care. No
    other variances may be issued under a state RD&D permit. To grant a variance, the state
    director must be satisfied that a landfill operating under an RD&D permit will protect the
    environment to the same extent as it would under a standard MSWLF permit.
       Municipal Solid Waste RD&D permits may be used for new and innovative landfill
    technologies, such as bioreactor landfills and phytocovers. Bioreactor landfills are de-
    signed and operated in such a manner that liquids are added to the waste mass to acceler-
    ate the decomposition of the waste. Phytocovers provide a different approach to control-
    ling infiltration by using plants to remove moi sture from the soil cover of a municipal landfill.
       A state must adoptthese regulations in order to issue RD&D permits. The Agency
    expects landfill owners and operators to save money by recirculating leachate instead of
    treating it, and from cost reductions associated with the flexibility in this rule for innovative
    final cover designs.
       This rule is not an attempt to lessen the importance of composting or source reducton
    in the hierarchy of municipal solid waste management. If new technologies can improve the
    overall management of MSW while protecting human health and the environment, then
    EPA encourages the development of such new and innovative technologies.

    For  IViore   information
       This fact sheet and other information related to MSW RD&D permits are available on
    the Internet at: .

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