Subtitle C - Hazardous Waste

P discarded acutely hazardous commercial chemical products 

D wastes for which the above codes do not apply — considered hazardous only if they exhibit ignitabUity (I), corrosivity (C), reactivity (R), and/or toxicity (E/H/T). 

RCRA also addresses the transportation of hazardous waste (40 CFR 263). Any transporter of hazardous waste must also comply with the Department of Transportation (DOT) rules under the Hazardous Materials Transportation Act (HMTA) regarding proper labeling, packaging, handling, and placarding.  

Other provisions exist if the solid waste will be incinerated. 

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Under the RCRA exemption, wastes intrinsically associated with the exploration and development of oil and gas do not have to follow Subtitle C regulations for disposal. Under Subtitle C, hazardous wastes must follow strict guidelines for storage, treatment, and transportation and disposal. The cost of handling materials under the Subtitle C scenario is overwhelming. Under the exemption, the operator is allowed to dispose of wellsite waste in a prudent manner and is not obliged to use licensed hazardous waste transporters and licensed Treatment, Storage, and Disposal Facilities (TSDF). 

To provide an overall perspective on how RCRA works, each of its programs—solid waste, hazardous waste, and USTs—and their interrelationships are briefly summarized here. The Subtitle D (solid waste) program is discussed prior to the Subtitle C (hazardous waste) program. Although this is alphabetically out of order, the structure is designed for better understanding by the reader. 

A material cannot be a hazardous waste if it does not meet the definition of a solid waste. Thus, wastes that are excluded from the definition of solid waste are not subject to the RCRA Subtitle C hazardous waste regulation. There are 20 exclusions from the definition of solid waste ... 

Hazardous waste samples are small, discrete amounts of hazardous waste that are essential to ensure accurate characterization and proper hazardous waste treatment. In order to facilitate the analysis of these materials, RCRA exempts characterization samples and treatability study samples from Subtitle C hazardous waste regulation ... 

There are five classes of injection wells (Class I through V). Class I disposal wells are used for the disposal of industrial and hazardous waste streams, and may also be subject to certain RCRA, Subtitle C hazardous waste management regulations. Class II wells are defined as those wells used in conjunction with oil and gas production activities. Class III wells are defined as those wells that inject fluids ... 

All Subtitle C hazardous wastes are prohibited from land disposal without prior demonstration that hazardous constituent concentration levels comply with regulatory limits or that prescribed methods of treatment are used. These two criteria are intended to reduce the toxicity of the waste or substantially reduce the likelihood of migration of hazardous constituents from the waste, so that health and environmental threats are minimized. The primary method of treatment is waste combustion to destroy organic constituents. 

A. No. Unused products, if disposed of, are not exempt, regardless of their intended use, because they have not been used and therefore are not uniquely associated with the exploration or production of oil and gas. When unused products become waste (e.g., they are disposed of), they are subject to RCRA Subtitle C hazardous waste regulations if they are listed or exhibit a hazardous characteristic. 

EPA has established an exemption from CERCLA release notification requirements for the disposal of hazardous substances at RCRA Subtitle C hazardous waste facilities. Because the disposal of wastes into permitted or interim status facilities is already documented through the RCRA manifest system, EPA believes that notification under CERCLA does not provide a significant additional benefit. 

To achieve these objectives, RCRA authorized EPA to regulate the generation, treatment, storage, transportation, and dispos of hazardous wastes. The structure of the national hazardous waste regula-toiy program envisioned by Congress is laid out in Subtitle C of RCRA (Sections 3001 through 3019), vdiich authorized EPA to ... 

EPA, under Section 3006 of RCRA, may authorize a state to administer and enforce a state hazardous waste program in lieu of the federal Subtitle C program. To receive authorization, a state program must ... 

Congress, in an attempt to promote mineral development in the United States, has exempted most hazardous wastes produced at the wellsite under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) Subtitle C regulations. Hazardous wastes are listed due to inherent characteristics of ... 

Since 1980, under RCRA Subtitle C, U.S. EPA has developed a comprehensive program to ensure that hazardous waste is managed safely from the moment it is generated while it is transported, treated, or stored until the moment it is finally disposed (Figure 12.1). This cradle-to-grave management system establishes requirements for each of the following ... 

The hazardous waste identification process (as discussed in Chapter 1) describes how to determine whether a material is a solid and hazardous waste. How a material is regulated under RCRA (i.e., whether or not it is a solid and potentially a hazardous waste) when it is recycled depends on what type of material it is and what type of recycling is occurring. If the recycled material is not a solid waste, then it is not a hazardous waste and is not subject to RCRA Subtitle C requirements. However, if the material qualifies as a solid and hazardous waste, it is subject to RCRA Subtitle C jurisdiction. 

Not all hazardous wastes pose the same degree of hazard when recycled. U.S. EPA believes that wastes that may be recycled in a protective manner, or that are addressed under other environmental regulations, warrant exemptions from RCRA Subtitle C. Consequently, handlers of these materials are not subject to any hazardous waste regulations. These exempt recyclable hazardous wastes are1 2 3... 

Scrap metal Scrap metal that is disposed of or recycled is a solid waste however, it is exempt from Subtitle C regulation when it is reclaimed (i.e., recycled to recover metal content). This does not apply to processed scrap metal that is excluded from hazardous waste regulation entirely. 

Sludge resulting from wastewater treatment and pretreatment under CWA must be handled as an RCRA waste under Subtitle C, if hazardous. 

Material is a solid waste and may be a hazardous waste subject to RCRA Subtitle C regulation... 

U.S. EPA proposed to significantly impact the RCRA hazardous waste identification process through a rulemaking effort called the Hazardous Waste Identification Rules (H WIR). The first rule, HWIR-media, was finalized on November 30,1998, and addressed contaminated media.16 The second rule, HWIR-waste, was finalized on May 16, 2001, and modified the mixture and derived-from rules, as well as the contained-in policy for listed wastes.5 Both the HWIR-media rule and the HWIR-waste rule attempt to increase flexibility in the hazardous waste identification system by providing a regulatory mechanism for certain hazardous wastes with low concentrations of hazardous constituents to exit the RCRA Subtitle C universe. 

Subtitle I of RCRA was enacted to control and prevent leaks from underground storage tanks.16 It regulates substances, including petroleum products and hazardous material. Tanks storing hazardous wastes, however, are regulated under Subtitle C, and are not the concern of this chapter. 

For hazardous waste landfills, RCRA Subtitle C provides certain performance criteria for final cover systems. While RCRA does not specify minimum design requirements, U.S. EPA has issued guidance for the minimum design of these final cover systems. Figure 25.1b shows an example of an RCRA Subtitle C cover at a hazardous waste landfill.30... 

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