Hazardous Waste Operations categories

Category Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response (1910.120)... 

It is the roughly 7 percent of solid wastes produced by industrial and energy-generation operations and the 3 percent produced by nonindustrial human activities that present the most serious environmental problems in the United States today. These fall into three large categories (1) pure volume of wastes, (2) hazardous wastes, and (3) radioactive wastes. Each type of solid waste poses its own set of problems and requires its own set of solutions. 

Processing Techniques The processing of hazardous wastes on a batch basis can be accomplished by physical, chemical, thermal, and biological means. The various individual processes in each category are reported in Table 22-65. Clearly, the number of possible treatment-process combinations is staggering. In practice, the physical, chemical, and thermal treatment operations and processes are the ones most commonly used. 

Operationally, a waste is classified as hazardous based on three criteria (1) it is listed as a hazardous waste (40 CFR 261 subpart D) (2) it has one of the following four characteristics ignitability, corrosivity, reactivity, and toxicity (see 40 CFR 261 subpart C for the specific definition of these characteristics) or (3) it falls into the category of "other" hazardous waste (primarily mixtures of non-hazardous materials with hazardous waste). 

Hazardous wastes from specific sources - Unless the laboratory is a pilot operation simulating an industrial process, it is unhkely that most research laboratories would fell within this category. Note however, that hazardous chemicals used in a pilot plant operation normally would not be exempt from the regulatory provisions of SARA Title HI, discussed in Section IX.B of this chapter. 

The portions of RCRA dealing with hazardous wastes, one of two categories of wastes under the act, are of interest for lead contamination in multiple media such hazardous material is covered in 3001—4009 of the legislation. The act regulates generation, transportation, storage, and disposal of hazardous wastes and is quite broad in its scope. The various aspects of operating methods, techniques, and practices as detailed in the act must function ( 3004) so as to. . protect human health and the environment. ... 

The radioactive wastes associated with nuclear reactors fall into two categories (1) commercial wastes — the result of operating nuclear-powered electric generating facilities and (2) military wastes—the result of reactor operations associated with weapons manufacture, Because the fuel in plutonium production reactors, as required by weapons, is irradiated less than the fuel in commercial power reactors, the military wastes contain fewer fission products and thus are not as active radiologically or thermally. They are nevertheless hazardous and require careful disposal. 

The U.S. Army s chemical agent disposal facilities, like many industrial facilities, produce wastes in the course of plant operations. For the purposes of this report, secondary waste is defined as any waste associated with the storage or destruction of chemical agent. Like other industrial waste, these wastes are either hazardous or nonhazardous. A particular waste is classified into one or the other of these categories by either laboratory analysis or generator knowledge of material source, use, and exposure (Box 1-1). The wastes discussed in this report are called secondary wastes to distinguish them from the chemical munitions that are... 

A separate category of waste, closure waste, results from the decontamination and destruction of the facility at the completion of disposal operations. These wastes, which are also classified as either hazardous or non-hazardous, are addressed in Chapter 4. 

EPA. 1994m. National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants for Source Categories. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. National Emission Standards for Off-Site Waste and Recovery Operations Proposed Rule. 59 FR 66336. 

Recovery Act (RCRA) and by the NRC under the Atomic Energy Act. The EPA and NRC have developed special procedures on how to handle and dispose of this special category. The DOE operates an incinerator in Oak Ridge, Tennessee that bums mixed hazardous radioactive wastes (DOE 1996a). 

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