• The amount of initial training required depends on an employee’s job role, but almost everyone is required to have eight hours of annual refresher training.

Before any work on a hazardous waste cleanup site, the employer must provide employees with initial training based on their tasks and operations and the anticipated exposures (see the table below).

Employees who have equivalent experience and skills from previous work experience and/or training do not have to receive the initial training, provided that the employer can verify it through documentation or certification. However, equivalently trained employees who are new to a site must receive site-specific training before site entry.

Employees who receive the specified training must receive a written certificate from their instructor (or the head instructor) and trained supervisor upon successful completion of that training. A written certificate shall be given to each person so certified.

If the employee goes to work at a new site, the training does not need to be repeated; however, the employee must receive the necessary additional site-specific training needed to work safely at the new site.

All employees must receive eight hours of annual refresher training as indicated in the table above. This training may include any critique of incidents that have occurred in the past year, examples of related work, and other relevant topics.

Notes:

• Subparagraph (e)(7) of 1910.120 and 1926.65 also calls for the training of employees who are engaged in responding to hazardous emergency situations at hazardous waste cleanup sites that may expose them to hazardous substances. That training must cover how to respond to such expected emergencies. No training duration is specified. Please refer to the Emergency response for uncontrolled hazardous waste sites section found elsewhere in this subject for further discussion.
• Non-mandatory Appendices C and E to the Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response (HAZWOPER) Standard at 1910.120 and 1926.65 provide useful compliance guidelines and assistance in developing a site-specific training curriculum used to meet the training requirements in paragraph (e) of 1910.120 and 1926.65.