EPA Finalizes Definition of Solid Waste (DSW) Rule!

On Dec. 10, 2014, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its final revisions to the Definition of Solid Waste (DSW) Rule, which were initially proposed in 2011, and at which time ACA provided comments to the agency. The regulations amend the 2008 Definition of Solid Waste under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and concern the management of hazardous materials sent to recycling. Under the regulation, third-party recyclers may no longer exempt themselves from requirements to provide information about their operations and demonstrate their ability to pay for a cleanup of potential contamination.

EPA’s 2014 amendments were based on an EPA environmental justice analysis of the 2008 DSW rule that examined the location of recycling facilities and their proximity and potential impact to adjacent residents. The agency concluded that the analysis indicated “regulatory gaps” in the 2008 DSW rule that could negatively impact communities adjacent to third-party recyclers.

Based on these “gaps,” EPA has amended the 2008 DSW rule to include the following provisions:

• Replacing the transfer-based exclusion with the verified recycler exclusion;

• Establishing a uniform recycling standard for all hazardous secondary materials recycling with four mandatory factors: 1) the hazardous secondary material must provide a useful contribution to the recycling process or product; 2) the recycling process must produce a valuable product or intermediate; 3) the hazardous secondary material must be managed as a valuable commodity; and 4) the recycled product must be comparable to a legitimate product or intermediate;

• Affirming pre-2008 DSW exclusions and reaffirming the legitimacy of in-process recycling and of commodity-grade recycled products; and

• Defining when hazardous secondary materials are “contained” under the new exclusions.

Although EPA replaced the 2008 transfer-based exclusion with a more stringent verified recycler exclusion, the transfer-based exclusion is still generally less stringent than more onerous subtitle C regulations proposed in 2011. ACA is currently reviewing this lengthy rulemaking and will provide additional materials to its membership in the near future.

Notably, EPA finalized a new “remanufacturing” exclusion that will exempt 18 high-value hazardous materials and solvents that can be made into commercially valuable products from hazardous waste regulations.

Because most states are authorized to administer and enforce the RCRA program, these authorized states will have to adopt the DSW rule before any such changes become effective.

The final rule, press release, fact sheet, FAQs, and Environmental Justice analysis is available at http://www.epa.gov/osw/hazard/dsw/rulemaking.htm.

Source: http://paint.org/news/industry-news/item/1657-epa-finalizes-definition-of-solid-waste-dsw-rule.html