Mixed waste state regulation

Because mixed waste contains radionuclides and hazardous chemicals, it is subject to dual regulation under AEA and RCRA. Mixed waste generated in commercial activities is regulated under EPA or state RCRA requirements and NRC or comparable Agreement State requirements under AEA. Mixed waste generated by DOE is regulated by DOE under AEA and by EPA or a state under RCRA. This dual regulatory framework has created difficulties for mixed waste... 

In 1986, EPA published a notice that a state must have the authority to regulate mixed waste in order for that state to obtain and... 

EPA (1986c). U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. State authorization to regulate the hazardous components of radioactive mixed wastes under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, 51 FR 24504 (U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington). 

Petroleum wastes or other flammable liquid wastes are often burned for energy recovery. Relatively small amounts recovered from a spill can be shipped to a fuel blender, who mixes flammable waste liquids to achieve acceptable physical and chemical properties and markets the resulting material as fuel. Flammable wastes are sometimes burned at cement kilns for energy recovery because cement manufacture is highly energy-intensive. In the United States, facilities that recover energy from hazardous wastes are regulated under the RCRA Boiler and Industrial Furnace (BIF) Rules. 

Landspreading In this procedure, solids from the reserve pit (and potentially other solids from production) are broken up and thinly applied to soil, and tilled to mix the waste and soil. In theory, volatile components evaporate off, metal ions bind to the clay, and heavy organic components are broken down by biological activity. States regulate this practice differently. 

Under current EPA regulations, a chemical waste is either hazardous or it is not, and there is no further classification of hazardous chemical waste with respect to the degree of hazard. Some states have defined classes of hazardous chemical waste (e.g., extremely hazardous waste) but, in practice, the requirements on management and disposal of all hazardous wastes have resulted in essentially the same approaches being used regardless of hazard. When a hazardous chemical waste is mixed with a nonhazardous solid waste, the entire waste is classified as hazardous unless the former is a characteristically hazardous waste that does not contain any listed waste and mixing with the nonhazardous waste removes the hazardous characteristic. 

The physical and health hazards associated with chemicals should be determined before working with them This determination may involve consulting literature references. Laboratory Chemical Safety Summaries (LCSSs), Matmal Safety Data Sheets (MSDSs), or other reference materials (see also Chapter 3, section 3.B) and may require discussions with the laboratory supervisor and consultants such as safety and industrial hygiene officers. Every step of the waste minimization and removal processes should be checked against federal, state, and local regulations. Production of mixed chemical-radioactive-biological waste (see Chapter 7, section 7.C.1.3) should not be considered without discussions with environmental health and safety experts. 

The Regulations ban the mixing of hazardous waste and state that it must be stored separately on site. However, clarification on the interpretation of this is still awaited from the EA as it would, for instance, preclude the collection of computer systems that included a base unit and screen. 

Quantities of hazardous wastes produced each year are not known with certainty and depend on the definitions used for such materials. In the United States, there are around 17,000 RCRA-regulated sites that generate approximately 30 million tons of wastes. However, most of this material is water, with only a few million tons consisting of solids. Some high-water-content wastes are generated directly by processes that require large quantities of water in waste treatment, and other aqueous wastes are produced by mixing hazardous wastes with wastewater. 

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