The EPA on Tuesday announced a final rule under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act to ease regulation of hazardous secondary materials when they are recycled by reclamation.

Until now, businesses were obligated to treat some recyclable materials as hazardous waste, requiring difficult and costly disposal.

"Removing barriers to legitimate recycling is good for business and the environment," said Susan Parker Bodine, assistant administrator for the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response. "This rule will help conserve natural resources, save energy and reduce costs."

The rule excludes materials from the federal hazardous waste system that are:

• generated and legitimately reclaimed under the control of the generator;
• generated and transferred to another company for legitimate reclamation under specific conditions; or
• determined by EPA or an authorized state to be non-wastes on a case-by-case basis via a petition process.

The rule also contains a provision to determine which recycling activities are legitimate under the new exclusions and non-waste determinations. These exclusions are not available for materials that are considered inherently waste-like, used in a manner constituting disposal, or burned for energy recovery.

The agency estimated that about 5,600 facilities, handling approximately 1.5 million tons of hazardous secondary materials annually, may be impacted by this rule. The activities most affected are metals and solvent recycling. The EPA estimates that the regulation will save approximately $95 million per year for the affected industries.

Links

• Read this rule