The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently announced its strategy to “ease the burden of managing hazardous wastes in a retail setting.” But, how helpful will these actions be for retailers faced with numerous and varied hazardous wastes and the convoluted regulations surrounding the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA)? Yesterday we examined EPA’s plans that retailers look for relief under other proposed and/or final rules. Today we will see what the EPA has in mind for aerosol cans and the thorny issue of reverse distribution.
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What About Aerosol Cans?
The act of emptying an aerosol can might qualify as an exempt recycling activity with any residues from emptying subject to hazardous waste regulation if they are listed as hazardous waste or exhibit a characteristic of hazardous waste. If an aerosol can containing hazardous waste is sent for disposal, both the contents of the can and the can itself would require compliance with hazardous waste disposal rules. If the can is sent for scrap metal recycling, the can and its contents would be exempt from hazardous waste regulation as a scrap metal.
Under the new RCRA retail strategy, the EPA is developing a guide on how to recycle aerosol cans under the existing RCRA recycling exclusions, including recycling aerosol cans for scrap metal recovery.
The EPA says that this guide will assist generators of aerosol cans and recyclers to increase their recycling of this pesky but very common wastestream. However, this will just provide guidance on an already controversial and complicated regulation.
Here’s where the universal waste rule may come in. Under the new retail strategy, the EPA plans to develop a proposed rule to address aerosol cans as universal waste. The universal waste rule is meant to encourage the recycling of certain widely generated hazardous waste. Generated universal waste is not counted in a generator’s hazardous waste quantity if it is managed according to universal waste rules, which are less strict than the RCRA hazardous waste rules. Some states (e.g., California, Colorado, Minnesota, Utah) already include aerosol cans under state universal waste rules.
Reverse Distribution Policy
As mentioned, as late as 2014, the EPA was considering a retail-specific rule for managing hazardous waste that would include possible provisions specific to reverse distribution. However, with what the EPA considers to be relief for retailers under the proposed hazardous waste generator improvements and the hazardous waste pharmaceutical rules, the possibility of regulatory relief for retailers for reverse distribution is being demoted to a “policy.”
In developing this policy, the EPA plans to consider:
- The scope of the retail “universe,” including the number of individually- or family-owned stores;
- Positions of regulators such as EPA regions, states/tribes, and local governments in the location of the point of generation;
- The extent to which inspections by regulators continue to identify compliance issues in the retail sector, including failure to make hazardous waste determinations; and
- The extent to which the reverse distribution process results in appropriate management of unsalable consumer goods originating from retail stores, such that the percentage of retail items disposed of as solid or hazardous waste is reduced to the maximum extent possible.
The EPA makes it quite clear that any retail reverse distribution policy the Agency comes up with is not intended to address wastes from routine maintenance activities and cleanup of spilled materials or, and key for retail, any damaged/leaking products no longer considered commodities and “unknowns” (item contents cannot be identified).
You Be the Judge
How does this new EPA strategy sit with environment, health, and safety managers at retail operations? We’d like to hear from you. Is it enough, not enough, or just as confusing as current regulations? Let us know what you think.
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