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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.
Scope
The LDR program generally applies to restricted hazardous waste handlers, including:
- Persons who generate or transport covered hazardous waste, and
- Owners and operators of hazardous waste treatment, storage, and disposal facilities (TSDFs).
These hazardous wastes are not subject to LDR requirements:
- Wastes generated by conditionally exempt small quantity generators,
- Waste pesticide or container residue disposed of by a farmer on their own land,
- Newly identified or listed hazardous wastes for which the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has not yet established disposal restriction treatment standards, and
- Certain low-volume releases and laboratory wastes that are mixed with a facility’s wastewater and discharged to the facility’s wastewater pretreatment or treatment system.
Regulatory citations
- 40 CFR Part 268 — Land disposal restrictions
Key definitions
- Land disposal: Placement in or on the land, except in a corrective action management unit or staging pile, and includes, but isn’t limited to, placement in a landfill, surface impoundment, waste pile, injection well, land treatment facility, salt dome formation, salt bed formation, underground mine or cave, or placement in a concrete vault or bunker intended for disposal purposes.
- Nonwastewaters: Wastes that don’t meet the criteria for wastewaters.
- Underlying hazardous constituent: Any constituent listed in the universal treatment standards (UTS) table (40 CFR 268.48) — except fluoride, selenium, sulfides, vanadium, and zinc — that can reasonably be expected to be present at the point of generation of the hazardous waste at a concentration above the constituent-specific UTS treatment standards.
- Very small quantity generator: A hazardous waste generator that generates less than or equal to the following amounts in a calendar month:
- 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of non-acute hazardous waste,
- 1 kilogram (2.2) pounds of acute hazardous waste, and/or
- 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of any residue or contaminated soil, water, or other debris resulting from the cleanup of a spill, into or on any land or water, of any acute hazardous waste.
- Wastewaters: Wastes that contain less than 1 percent by weight total organic carbon and less than 1 percent by weight total suspended solids.
Summary of 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:
- The handler generates, treats, stores, or disposes of hazardous waste (per 262.11); and
- The hazardous waste is destined for land disposal.
Prohibitions
The LDR program is built on three prohibitions:
- The disposal prohibition requires waste-specific treatment standards to be met before a waste can be land disposed.
- The dilution prohibition forbids impermissible dilution, which is when waste handlers dilute hazardous waste instead of using adequate treatment to meet treatment standards.
- The storage prohibition allows the temporary storage of hazardous wastes subject to LDRs only if it’s to accumulate a sufficient volume of waste to facilitate proper treatment, recovery, or disposal of the waste, and the waste is stored in a tank, container, or containment building.
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:
- Total waste standards,
- Waste extract standards, or
- Technology standards.
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:
- Ignitability,
- Corrosivity,
- Reactivity, and
- Toxicity.
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.
- Generators must keep on-site copies of all notices, certifications, waste analysis data, and other recordkeeping documents for at least three years from the date the waste was last sent to on- or off-site treatment, storage, or disposal.
- TSDFs are also required to keep copies of the notices and certifications on-site.
- Land disposal facilities must keep records of all notifications and certifications received from generators and TSDFs.