One of the biggest challenges in waste management is staying compliant with the state and federal regulations that govern the generation, transport, treatment, storage, and disposal of waste. The myriad regulations governing compliance for these operations, especially hazardous waste compliance, can become a tangle that even experienced facilities find challenging.

Fortunately, a professional waste management company can help you navigate waste management rules. Below, we'll give an overview of hazardous and nonhazardous waste, discuss the requirements of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and the Hazard Communication Standard, explain how experts evaluate compliance and offer suggestions on how a professional waste management company can ensure your facility's compliance and help it meet sustainability goals.

Industrial and commercial waste falls into two general categories: hazardous and nonhazardous.

Hazardous waste is waste that poses an immediate threat to humans or the environment if improperly disposed of. Hazardous waste is addressed under Subtitle C of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), which allows the EPA tight control over the entire lifespan of hazardous waste.

A hazardous waste material may appear on any of the EPA's four specific lists of hazardous wastes:

Waste may also be classified as characteristic hazardous waste if it exhibits any one of four specific qualities: ignitability, corrosivity, reactivity or toxicity.

Some other examples of hazardous waste include weedkillers, pesticides, fluorescent light bulbs, industrial cleaners, propane, acetylene, battery acid, lithium-sulfur batteries, and medical wastes such as cultures and human tissues.

Nonhazardous waste, by contrast, does not pose an immediate threat to humans or the environment, though it poses certain risks that prevent it from being dumped indiscriminately. It is addressed under Subtitle D of the RCRA.

Some examples of nonhazardous waste include the following:

The regulation of nonhazardous waste, unlike the regulation of hazardous waste, is generally left to individual states.

You may be wondering whether you truly need a waste management provider — couldn't you deal with your facility's waste yourself? But processing waste is more complicated than merely throwing it into a dumpster or hauling it to a landfill.

Many types of waste must go to specialized landfills and involve specific, rigorous handling procedures to keep employees and the public safe and healthy.

Working with a waste management provider helps meet a few different needs:

The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act was enacted on October 21, 1976, and is overseen by the Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery (ORCR). It effectively amended the Solid Waste Disposal Act, which Congress had enacted in 1965.

Through the RCRA, the EPA set four main national goals:

The RCRA gives the EPA authority over hazardous waste from creation to disposal. The RCRA governs several different processes hazardous waste may undergo, including its generation, transportation, treatment, storage and disposal. The RCRA also outlines procedures for dealing with nonsolid hazardous wastes.

In 1984, the RCRA gained two new amendments. These amendments, known as the Federal Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments (HSWA), focus on sustainability. They call for minimizing the generation of waste, decreasing landfill use, and implementing fines and punishments for improper waste disposal. They also create stricter standards for the handling of hazardous waste, allow the EPA to address the environmental concerns associated with storing petroleum and other hazardous waste in underground tanks, and give the EPA increased authority to enforce its regulations.

The RCRA has several separate programs. Three key programs are the solid waste program, the hazardous waste program and the underground storage tank program:

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) created the Hazard Communication Standard to compel facilities that handle hazardous waste to meet specific requirements in their workspaces.

Facilities that handle hazardous waste are required to ensure the proper labeling of all chemicals used in the facility, even chemicals that are not themselves hazardous. Containers of hazardous chemicals must be marked with the identity of the substance and the appropriate hazard warnings. Chemical manufacturers and distributors must additionally ensure every container that leaves the facility is appropriately labeled with the chemical's identity, the correct hazard warnings, and the name and address of the manufacturer.

If the facility transfers the chemical from one labeled container to another container, the facility must label the new container with the required information — unless the container is portable and, therefore, exempt from this requirement.

The most essential part of the label is the identity of the substance in question, which may be a trade name or a chemical formula. This name should appear on the label, as well as on the associated material safety data sheet and the facility's list of chemicals. The hazard warning should be a succinct description of the hazardous effects of the chemical, such as "flammable," "fatal if swallowed," "poisonous if inhaled," etc.

OSHA also requires facilities that handle hazardous waste to provide a material safety data sheet (SDS) for each substance.

Employers must provide an SDS for each substance they use, and distributors must provide one for each product that leaves the facility.

The SDS lays out rigorously detailed information on the chemical in question, including its physical and chemical properties, its potential hazardous effects and guidelines for protective measures against those effects.

When employees are working, SDSs must be accessible at all times so workers can easily consult them. To comply with this requirement, some facilities keep their SDSs in a binder in a central location. Others provide their SDSs in a digital format that employees can access from many different workstations.

Compliance officers evaluating SDS protocols will check to see that the following information is available in written form:

The Hazard Communication Standard additionally requires facilities that handle hazardous materials to train their employees on safe practices. Every employee who may be exposed to hazardous chemicals in the workplace, whether through ingestion, inhalation, absorption or skin contact, must receive thorough training before beginning work. Employees must also receive training if they begin working with a new chemical or the hazard of a particular chemical changes.

Even though employees have access to written material in the SDSs, in-person training is essential. Training helps employees learn how to read chemical safety information, and it helps ensure that they understand and can apply what they have learned.

Providing an interactive training environment that encourages employees to ask questions also helps promote genuine comprehension. If employees understand why specific protocols are in place, they will be much more likely to follow them and to bring lapses in protocol to managers' attention. They will also become proficient in handling and storing hazardous materials safely, and their proficiency will minimize the likelihood of serious accidents and injuries in the workplace.

When facilities are creating written records of their training programs, they should consider including the following information:

When compliance officers visit a facility, they will also want to receive answers to the following questions:

As suggested above, written details about various hazards and protocols in a hazardous waste facility are essential. Facilities that handle hazardous waste must have a written plan that specifies how the facility will communicate information about its hazardous substances and their handling. When OSHA evaluates a workplace for compliance with the Hazard Communication Standard, the first thing the compliance officer will do is likely to request the written plan.

The written plan must do a few different things:

Breaking waste management rules is a serious matter. Improper waste disposal has the potential to inflict catastrophic harm on the public and the environment. Consequently, the EPA has developed both civil and criminal penalties for facilities that fail to comply with its waste disposal regulations.

The EPA can employ a few different types of enforcement actions:

After the EPA has taken an enforcement action, one of a few different outcomes can result.

Civil enforcement typically sees the following results:

Criminal enforcement typically produces the following results:

The EPA lays out specific penalties for RCRA noncompliance infractions:

Waste disposal experts ensure compliance by developing compliance monitoring programs and sending personnel to inspect facilities, report violations and help build civil or criminal cases when necessary.

The RCRA has a compliance monitoring program designed to ensure that facilities follow its statutes and regulations. States and local authorities carry out much of the compliance monitoring program, though the EPA provides oversight to ensure proper inspection.

Compliance monitoring, often via EPA or state inspections, involves different reviews for different applications.

Hazardous waste compliance monitoring includes several different components:

Similar compliance monitoring programs exist for used oil, universal wastes, mixed wastes, land disposal, hazardous waste injection, hazardous waste imports and exports, permitting programs, underground storage tanks and solid waste:

Effective waste management offers a number of advantages:

Why is sustainability so essential in waste management services? Sustainability is important because it acknowledges that many generations will follow ours, so our practices of use, waste and disposal must remain at levels that keep our planet healthy and habitable for many generations to come. Reaching sustainability goals is crucial for several reasons:

To ensure your facility remains compliant in its practices, work with VLS for commercial waste management. We are a full-service environmental company that can transport and process the wastes produced in heavy-duty operations such as manufacturing and construction. When you work with us, you'll gain the peace of mind that comes from knowing you are fully compliant with EPA and RCRA regulations. You'll also know you are doing your part to keep the public healthy and the environment clean.

We are also happy to consult with facilities about their sustainability goals, including reducing landfill waste, processing nonhazardous wastes and recycling residual wastes.

Contact us today to learn more.