What Is a Hazardous Waste

A waste is something unwanted, usually a solid, liquid, or a contained gas. It is the responsibility of the generator to determine if the waste is nonhazardous, hazardous, or acutely hazardous. The EPA classifies 

The regulations include four lists identified by the letters F, K, P, and U that together describe about 400 hazardous wastes. The F-list 

If a waste cannot be found on one of the RCRA lists, this does not mean it is not hazardous. Unlisted waste must still be tested to determine if it has certain properties or characteristics that render it hazardous. A waste is hazardous if it has one or more of the following properties ignitability, corrosivity, reactivity, or toxicity. 

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What is a hazardous waste What is RCRA hazardous... 

Environment Agency. (2005). What is a hazardous waste A guide to the hazardous waste regulations and the list of waste regulations in england and wales (HWROI). 

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. 

Proper identification of a hazardous waste can be a difficult and confusing task, as the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) regulations establish a complex definition of the term hazardous waste. To help make sense of what is and is not a hazardous waste, this chapter presents the steps involved in the process of identifying, or characterizing, a hazardous waste. 

Such analytical measurements are necessary to establish concentrations for most agents in the environment. How much benzene is present in the air at gasoline stations as a result of its evaporation from gasoline What is the concentration of arsenic in water running off the surface of a hazardous waste site where unknown amounts of arsenic were buried over many years What is the polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) concentration in fish swimming in waters next to a hazardous waste site known to contain this substance How much aflatoxin is in a batch of peanut butter The most reliable answers to these questions are those resulting from chemical analysis. 

CgH5Cl is fed into a hazardous waste incinerator at a rate of 5000 scfm (60°F, 1 atm) and is combusted in the presence of air fed at a rate of 3000 scfin (60°F, 1 atm). Both streams enter the incinerator at 70°F. Following combustion, the products are cooled from 2000°F and exit a cooler at 180°F. At what rate (Ib/h) do the products exit the cooler The molecular weight of C HjCl is 112.5 the molecular weight of air is 29. 

Degreaser sludge is classified as a hazardous waste under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and, as such, must be handled in compliance with federal, state, and local regulations. Your local agency for Management of Solid and Hazardous Wastes, or EPA Regional Solid Wastes Office, should be consulted to determine what alternatives are available for disposal of degreaser wastes. 

Table C-1 also compares the concentration of the nonstockpile chemical constituents in neutralent and rinsate with federal LDR treatment standards. There are no applicable federal LDRs for constituents of state-listed agent waste. But if the neutralent exhibits a RCRA hazardous waste characteristic, the federal LDRs apply. If the neutralent is not hazardous waste, the Army would have broad discretion to determine what constitutes acceptable treatment.

Well, it just doesn t disappear. Somebody has to do something with it. And this can cost your institution a whole lot of money. It is important that you understand what happens to waste when it leaves your laboratory, and that you take steps to minimize your waste and correctly identify what is in your waste. You should know that what happens to it depends a lot on you Another reason you should know something about this is that if you go to work as a chemist you will have to handle hazardous waste properly to avoid putting that company at financial risk. We will explain why below. 

The USEPA ruled that any waste mixture containing a listed hazardous waste is also considered a hazardous waste and must be managed accordingly. This applies regardless of what percentage of the waste mixture is composed of listed hazardous wastes. Wastes derived from hazardous... 

The properties of hazardous materials, their production, and what makes a hazardous substance a hazardous waste were discussed in Sections 15.1-15.8 of this chapter. Hazardous materials normally cause problems when they enter the environment and have detrimental effects on organisms or other parts of the environment. Therefore, this chapter deals with the environmental chemistry of hazardous materials. In discussing the environmental chemistry of hazardous materials, it is convenient to consider the following five aspects based on the definition of environmental chemistry ... 

A hazardous waste incinerator monitored over a 24-hour period took in a total of 1 kg of hexachlorobenzene. Analysis of the exhaust gas from the facility showed levels of 0.25 pg m of hexachlorobenzene at an exhaust gas flow rate of 0.200 m /s. What is the DRE of the process ... 

What is regulated as a hazardous waste There have been only minor changes since the passage of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) in 1976 this law was first implemented in 1980. The law states that any discarded chemical or chemical-byproduct that either meets a specific characteristic or is included on one of four lists is regulated as a hazardous waste. The four possible characteristics of a hazardous waste are shown below. 

Dissolved Air Flotation. Dissolved air flotation (DAF) is used to separate suspended soflds and oil and grease from aqueous streams and to concentrate or thicken sludges. Air bubbles carry or float these materials to the surface where they can be removed. The air bubbles are formed by pressurizing either the influent wastewater or a portion of the effluent in the presence of air. When the pressurized stream enters the flotation tank which is at atmospheric pressure, the dissolved air comes out of solution as tiny, microscopic bubbles. Dissolved air flotation is used in many wastewater treatment systems, but in the United States it is perhaps best known with respect to hazardous waste because it is associated with the Hsted waste, K048, DAF flotation soflds from petroleum refining wastewaters. Of course, the process itself is not what is hazardous, but the materials it helps to remove from refining wastewaters. 

Thermal treatment is used to destroy, break down, or aid in the desorption of contaminants in gases, vapors, Hquids, sludges, and soHds. There are a variety of thermal processes that destroy contaminants, most of which are classified as incineration. Incineration HteraHy means to become ash (from Medieval Latin, incinerare in or into ashes). With respect to the incineration of hazardous wastes regulated in the United States, however, there is a strict legal definition of what constitutes an incinerator. The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) definition of incinerator at 40 CFR 260.10 is... 

Now you can reconsider the material balance equations by adding those additional factors identified in the previous step. If necessary, estimates of unaccountable losses will have to be calculated. Note that, in the case of a relatively simple manufacturing plant, preparation of a preliminary material-balance system and its refinement (Steps 14 and 15) can usefully be combined. For more-complex P2 assessments, however, two separate steps are likely to be more appropriate. An important rule to remember is that the inputs should ideally equal the outputs - but in practice this will rarely be the case. Some judgment will be required to determine what level of accuracy is acceptable, and we should have an idea as to what the unlikely sources of errors are (e.g., evaporative losses from outside holding ponds may be a materials loss we cannot accurately account for). In the case of high concentrations of hazardous wastes, accurate measurements are needed to develop cost-effective waste-reduction options. It is possible that the material balance for a number of unit operations will need to be repeated. Again, continue to review, refine, and, where necessary, expand your database. The compilation of accurate and comprehensive data is essential for a successful P2 audit and subsequent waste-reduction action plan. Remember - you can t reduce what you don t know is therel... 

The audit/inspeetion form that you should use ean be developed from the safety plan. A qualified person should examine the safety plan and eome up with a eheeklist that should serve as an audit/inspeetion form. Allowanees should be made to inelude items not speeifieally noted in the safety plan but that may be observed during field walk-throughs. Certain highly pertinent seetions of what OSHA uses when performing a eomplianee inspeetion of hazardous waste sites is ineluded in Appendix D. This inspeetion/audit form eovers many of the basies and ean be used a general guide. 

Confusion as to what constitutes municipal waste is presenting an obstacle to the use of packaging waste as a fuel in cement kilns. Whilst cement kilns can bum hazardous waste, they cannot bum a wide range of non-hazardous materials, it is reported. The case of Castle Cement is described which planned to bum a range of non-hazardous commercial and industrial wastes. Some waste-fired combustion processes, however, such as UK Waste s Fibre Fuel operation have been granted derogations where fuel is manufactured by advanced mechanical processes, which includes the production of fuel pellets. This latter process would be pointless for the cement industry since their fuels have to be pulverised. The problems are further discussed with reference to current European legislation. 

Your children may be exposed to endosulfan if unquahfied people apply pesticides around your home. In some cases, the use of pesticides that have been banned for use in homes has turned homes into hazardous waste sites. Your state licenses each person qualified to apply pesticides using EPA standards and further certifies each person qualified to apply restricted use pesticides. Ask to see the license and certification of anyone who applies pesticides for you. Also ask for the brand name of the pesticide, a material safety data sheet (MSDS), the name of the product s active ingredient, and the EPA registration number. Ask whether EPA has designated the pesticide for restricted use and what the approved uses are. This information is important if you or your family have a reaction to the product. 

A number of site-specific factors must first be evaluated. Including (1) the chemical characteristics and amount of hazardous waste, (2) the potential for release to the environment, (3) the sensitivity of the particular environment to the hazardous waste, (4) the proximity of the hazardous waste to humans, and (5) Its potential effect on human health. Then the environmental engineer must decide If a field Investigation of the site Is necessary, whether a feasibility study for remedial action Is required, what remedial action Is required to mitigate. If not eliminate, the contamination, and finally, what monitoring plan will enable the efficacy of the remedial action to be evaluated. 

The. synthesis (Fig. 2.3) is a perfect example of what is wrong with many organic synthe.ses it is circuitous, energy and raw materials intensive, generates copious amounts of waste, and involves intermediates that are smelly, hazardous and/or carcinogenic. 

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