Starting June 30, 2018, when hazardous waste receiving facilities (aka treatment, storage, and disposal facilities (TSDFs) on the federal level) are required to pay a fee for manifests, life will also change significantly for hazardous waste generators and transporters.
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And it’s not just fees, but we will look at fees first.
TSDFs Will Submit Payments, But …
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) decision to levy user fees on the TSDFs and other receiving facilities does not mean that hazardous waste generators and transporters get off scot-free.
Although the receiving facilities will be primarily responsible for payment of user fees to the EPA, they would be able to pass their fee costs through to their generator customers as part of their waste management service charges, if they want. Hazardous waste generators will likely try to share their new costs with the hazardous waste transporters they hire.
Generator Fee Considerations
If you are a hazardous waste generator, you may breathe a sigh of relief that you will not be tasked having to submit e-manifest fees, but it is most likely that you will be paying such fees.
E-manifesting will extend to all federally and state-regulated wastes that require a manifest, but you will still have the option of using paper manifests—for now. As discussed in yesterday’s Advisor, the EPA is making it much more expensive (up to 5x more) to use paper manifests.
As a hazardous waste generator, there are some actions you can take now to help keep your e-manifest costs down:
- Make sure the TSDF or other receiving facility you contract with plans to use the e-manifest system. Paper manifests mailed to the Agency for processing will incur a per-manifest fee 5 times greater than the fee for electronic manifests. Paper manifest submissions uploaded by TSDFs as image and data files will cost less, but still more than the electronic manifests. If your TSDF or receiving facility does not go fully electronic, you will be paying a higher fee to accommodate their electronic backwardness.
- Be ready to move to the e-manifest system yourself. If your TSDF or receiving facility goes fully electronic and you are not prepared, you may end up paying a higher fee for them to handle and transfer your paper manifests.
- Part of the preparation for e-manifests is ensuring that your employees who fill out and/or sign manifests are trained on the e-manifest system.
- Don’t just pay a blanket fee to your TSDF. Have the TSDF or receiving facility line-item the e-manifest costs in your contract or invoice. Ask them to give you the costs for each type of manifest. Keep in mind that the e-manifest fees can be changed every 2 years—the EPA can do this without going through the rulemaking process.
- Shop around. It’s possible, though unlikely, that some TSDFs or receiving facilities will absorb the e-manifest fees for the sake of business. If in the unlikely event they do, it is much more likely they will absorb the electronic submission fee.
There is also a process that allows for hybrid manifests to assist hazardous waste generators in transitioning to fully electronic manifests. A hybrid manifest begins as a paper manifest at the generator site and transitions to an electronic manifest at the transporter and through to the receiving facility. But, remember, any process that costs your TSDF or receiving facility more to operate, will likely cost you more to use.
As we said, fees are just one concern for hazardous waste generators under the new e-Manifest Fee Rule. In tomorrow’s Advisor, we will review how the EPA chose to address two other significant concerns faced by generators under the e-manifest system.