RCRA Overview

1
RCRA Overview

• Environmental Law 2
• Spring 2001

2
Brief chronology of RCRA

• Mid-70s--RCRA enacted mainly solid waste
  management
• Late 70s--Love Canal and Imminent Hazard relief,
  hazwaste management
• Early 80s--Superfund scandals landfilling
  regulations
• 1984--Lavelle conviction, Hazardous and Solid
  Waste Amendments

3
RCRAs General Approach

• Command-and-control (to the point of
  micromanagement)
• Permitting of parts of waste disposal industry
• Post-closure liability (CERCLA and PCLFs)
• Hierarchy of preferred options for hazwaste

4
Features of HASWA 84

• Land bans
• Increased regulation of TSDFs
• Hammer provisions
  
  
• Tighter small generator exemptions
• Nondelegation run riot

5
RCRA Distinctions

• The regulated
• Generators
• Small generators
• Transporters
• TSDFs (Transportation, Storage and Disposal
  Facilities

• The tools
• Cradle to grave manifests
• Rules governing disposal
• Post-closure liability

6
What can be done with hazwaste?

• Incineration
• Deep-well injection
• Chemical alteration (e.g., neutralization)--someti
  mes
• Landfilling
• Re-use or recycle (or incorporate in product)
• Avoid generating (toxics use reduction)

• Which of these alternatives should we prefer?
• What incentives should we create so better
  alternatives will be used?

7
What is hazwaste?

• Listed Wastes
• (Rulemaking but we wont go there)

• Characteristic wastes
• Ignitable
• Corrosive
• Reactive
• (old) Extraction Potential Toxicity (EP tox)
• (current) TCLP (toxic constituent leachate
  potential)

8
RCRA and the MSW Incineration Problem

• Incineration (energy recovery) emerges as the
  solution to solid waste--1980s
• Dioxins and furans, other complex chemicals are
  produced by incineration of plastics and other
  wastes
• Some materials (e.g., mercury) volatize
• Toxins rain down and enter food webs
• Ash left after incineration concentrates metals
• Materials that are burned cant be otherwise
  recycled