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Uncontrolled land disposal of hazardous wastes threatens human health and the environment. Under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the land disposal restrictions (LDR) program prohibits land disposal of untreated hazardous wastes. The LDR program requires that wastes are properly treated before disposal, reducing the potential for leaching hazardous constituents and waste toxicity.
The LDR program generally applies to restricted hazardous waste handlers, including:
These hazardous wastes are not subject to LDR requirements:
Waste handlers must first determine at the point of generation whether the waste is subject to LDRs. A waste handler is subject to LDRs if:
Prohibitions
The LDR program is built on three prohibitions:
Treatment standards
Before a hazardous waste listed in the “Treatment Standards for Hazardous Wastes” table at 268.40 can be land disposed, it must meet the treatment standards. Each waste in the table has one of three treatment standard requirements it must meet:
The table also lists standards for wastewaters and nonwastewaters, where applicable.
Special characteristic waste standards
A waste is considered hazardous either when it’s listed as a hazardous waste (called listed waste) or when it exhibits a characteristic of hazardous waste (called characteristic waste). Hazardous waste handlers must meet special rules (described at 268.9) for four hazardous waste characteristics, including:
When a characteristic waste is “decharacterized” through treatment, it can be disposed of in nonhazardous, solid waste land-based units. However, note that decharacterized wastes may still contain underlying hazardous constituents that must also be treated before land disposal.
Characteristic wastes that are subject to treatment standards but aren’t managed in a wastewater treatment system that is regulated under the Clean Water Act (CWA), that is CWA-equivalent, or that is injected into a Class I nonhazardous deep injection well must meet Universal Treatment Standards (268.48) for all underlying hazardous constituents before land disposal.
Alternative treatment standards
EPA established alternative treatment standards for certain types of waste (like soil, debris, and lab packs) that are optional and allow common-sense management of the wastes. Waste handlers can comply either with the general treatment standards or the alternative treatment standards.
Recordkeeping requirements
Generators and TSDFs that manage wastes subject to LDRs must comply with numerous notification, certification, waste analysis, and recordkeeping requirements listed in 268.7.