Waste Minimization under RCRA

Under RCRA. each facility must contain a contingency plan designed to minimize hazards to human hetiltli or tlie enviromiient from fires, explosions, or tuiy unplanned sudden or nonsudden release of hazardous w aste or hazardous waste constituent to air. soil, or surface water. The items tliat follow are applicable to each contingency plan. 

Under the conditions of the 1976 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), the Environmental Protection Agency focuses its efforts in dealing with hazardous wastes on 30 hazardous chemicals of special importance. Those chemicals are called waste minimization priority chemicals (WMPC). The list of WMPC, shown in the chart on page 160, changes over time, reflecting success in reducing the amount of one or another chemical in the environment, the ability to remove that chemical from the list, and the replacement of that chemical by another of environmental importance. 

Waste Minimization Waste minimization is any effort to reduce or recycle the quantity of waste generated, and when feasible, to reduce or eliminate toxicity. It includes any source reduction or recycling activity undertaken to reduce the total volume or quantity of hazardous waste and/or the toxicity of hazardous waste, with the goal of minimizing threats to human health and the environment. Waste minimization focuses exclusively on solid wastes regulated under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), and does not include treatment, unless the treatment is part of the recycling process. However, it is broader in scope than P2 to also include recycling and other means to reduce the amount of waste that must be treated or disposed of off- or onsite. 

EPA does not explicitly say which wastes are covered by its use of the term hazard wastes. An assumption can be made that since the report deals within the context of RCRA and was mandated under RCRA that EPA considers waste minimization to cover only those solid wastes regulated as hazardous waste under RCRA. 

Laboratory testing at various scales, up to an engineering scale that was 1/16 the size of the planned full-scale unit, has been under way since about 2003. The objective of this testing has been to identify additives that will promote the formation of a suitable final glass waste form. It is important that the waste formed exhibit minimal leaching of radioactive components and other contaminants of concern, such as RCRA heavy metals (Buelt et al 1987 Loehr et al 1992 Thomas and Treat, 2001). 

Also of note for this report are the RCRA Land Disposal Restrictions (LDRs)." The LDR program was mandated by the RCRA Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments of 1984. In essence, LDRs are treatment standards for listed and characteristic hazardous waste that must be achieved prior to land disposal. Treatment standards under the LDR program are established on the basis of the best demonstrated available technology and are therefore technology-based (as opposed to risk-based). Although LDR standards are technology-based, EPA has proposed, as part of HWIR, to cap LDR treatment standards with the HWIR risk-based levels. In this manner, treatment would not be required below those levels necessary to minimize risk to human health or the environment. 

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