EPA definition

U.S. EPA, Definition of Solid Waste and Hazardous Waste Recycling Module, U.S. EPA, Washington, DC, April 2006. 

The Environmental Protection Agency maintains a list of hundreds of elements and compounds classified as "hazardous and classifies hazardous wastes into four categories, as shown in the table on pages 158-159. Any company that produces solid wastes must determine on its own whether those wastes contain any hazardous waste under the EPAs definition. If it does, it is required to treat, store, and/or dispose of those wastes by some method that has been approved by the EPA. 

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) definition of pollution prevention recognizes actions which encompass the upper three levels in the hierarchy minimize generation to segregate and reuse. The U.S. EPA... 

EPA definition of precautionary principle, http //www.epa.gov/OCEPAtenns/pterms.html... 

Table I lists the EPA contaminants and the criteria that EPA has established to constitute a hazardous toxic waste. Table 2 shows the concentrations of the inorganic contaminants in the extract from the phosphogypsum samples. All of the organic compounds listed by EPA as hazardous toxic waste.s were tested by the standard EPA procedure none were detected. These included endrin, lindane, methoxychlor, toxaphene, 2,4-D silvex, and 2,4,5-TP silvex. All of the metals listed in Table I were found to be present in the extract at concentrations lower than allowed by EPA (as shown in Table 2). Therefore, by EPA definition phosphogypsum is not a hazardous toxic waste material. This confirms earlier research conclusions 71 that the leaching of trace elements from phosphogypsum is not significant in introducing hazardous toxic waste materials into the environment.

To limit the risk of hazardous air pollutant exposure over time, the EPA mandates that all major sources of HAP emissions operate under Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) standards. The EPA intends to augment and add to the current list of MACT standards additionally, there are catch-aU regulations for all major sources of HAPs. One such example is the MACT Hammer, which allows states to implement MACT standards for industries not currently addressed by EPA definitions. A list of such MACT standards, including the Miscellaneous Organic NESHAP (MON), can be referenced at http //www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/deputate/airwaste/aq/permits/nes-haps/hammer table.pdf. 

Wastes are considered hazardous according to the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) when they meet one or more criteria including ignitability, corrosivity, reactivity or toxicity as per EPA definitions (see Glossary of Terms). Additionally, wastes are also considered hazardous when they are included in one of the following lists ... 

Definition Wetlands are lands transitional between terrestrial and aquatic systems where the water table is usually at or near the surface or the land is covered by shallow water. For purposes of this classification, wetlands must have one or more of the following three attributes (i) at least periodically, the land supports predominately hydrophytes, (ii) the substrate is predominately undrained hydric soil, and (iii) the substrate is nonsoil and is saturated with water or covered by shallow water at some time during the growing season of each year. Source Cowardin et al. (1979). U.S. Department of Interior—Fish and Wildlife Service. This definition places emphasis on all three major attributes of wetlands, and is difficult to apply as it requires a comprehensive study of the site. The boundaries identified by this criteria are much more reliable than the EPA definition. 

The EPA has issued guidances on chemical nomenclature, commonly called nomenclature papers, that provide additional insight into its interpretation of the term mixture. These guidances illustrate the EPAs definition of mixtures ... 

Volatile organic compound by EPA definition means any compound of carbon, excluding carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, carbonic acid, metallic carbides or carbonates, and ammonium carbonate, which participates in atmospheric photochemical reactions. This includes any such organic compound other than the following, which have been determined to have negligible photochemical reactivity methane ethane methylene chloride 1,1,1 -trichloroethane 1,1,2-trichloro-1,2,2-trifluoroethane trichlorofluoromethane ... 

Figure 27-1. Logic tree for EPA definition of a hazardous waste.

Beside the EPA definitions, there are other ways to classify hazardous waste. For example, how long a material remains hazardous is important. Some materials, like heavy metals, remain toxic for extended periods. Most often a hazard is an intrinsic property of a material. Some materials lose their hazardous property over time at a moderate rate. Other materials, such as acids or bases, may lose their hazardous property rather quickly in contact with other materials. 

Figure 8.11 Graphical representations of the definition and implications of the EPA definition of an MDL. (a). Assumed normal frequency distribution of measured concentrations of MDL test samples spiked at one to five times the expected MDL concentration, showing the standard deviation s. (b) Assumed standard deviation as a function of analyte concentration, with a region of constant standard deviation at low concentrations, (c) The frequency distribution of the low concentration spike measurements is assumed to be the same as that for replicate blank measurements (analyte not present), (d) The MDL is set at a concentration to provide a false positive rate of no more than 1% (t = Student s t value at the 99 % confidence level), (e) Probability of a false negative when a sample contains the analyte at the EPA MDL concentration. Reproduced with permission from New Reporting Procedures Based on Long-Term Method Detection Levels and Some Considerations for Interpretations of Water-Quality Data Provided by the US Geological Survey NationalWater Quality Laboratory (1999), Open-File Report 99-193.

While the original EPA definition of the MDL (Glaser 1981) did strive to achieve a usefnl compromise between scientific and statistical defensibUity on the one hand, and cost in terms of time, money and effort on the other, there appears to be a growing acceptance (EPA 2004) that a more rigorons approach is required. Because there is always some variability in the calibration data, the precision of a measurement of x for an unknown sample will obviously be poorer than the precision estimated from replicate measurements of response Y for the same sample. Thus, in estimating any parameter such as the LOD, LLOQ etc., one must take into account the variability in both the calibration and the analysis of the unknown sample. 

It is interesting to note that if the cleaned layer is 4.3 cm and the diffusion coefficient is the experimentally determined value of 7.6 X 10 cm /sec. then there is little doubt that the transformer would be reclassified after 90 days. However, after one year of operation it would become a PCB transformer again by EPA definition even if it had been reclassified as non-PCB. ... 

By EPA definition (40CFR68.3), Worst-case release means the release of the largest quantity of a regulated substance from a vessel or process line failure that results in the greatest distance to an endpoint defined in 68.22(a). This end point is a specified concentration of a toxic substance, an overpressure of 1 psi for explosions, a radiant heat flux of 5 kW/m for 40 seconds for a fire, or the lower flammability limit for a flammable substance, whichever is appropriate. Thus, the worst case is defined by the size of the area adversely affected by the release. There are also definitions of how much of the material in a tank (often 100%) should be considered over what period of time (often 10 minutes) in the scenario. 

The determination of whether or not a particular byproduct is hazardous under the EPA definition should be made on a case-by-case basis (EPRI Report FP-977p, 7-2 di 7-7). (Duval et al, 1979)... 

Table 2.1 shows EPA definitions of several pollution prevention terms and Table 2.2 shows the differences in definitions between the EPA s Report to Congress Minimization of Hazardous Waste and the OTA s Serious Reduction of Hazardous Waste Report. ... 

Particle, fine (cleaning) A particle of diameter less than 2.5 microns (EPA definition). 

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