['Waste']
['Waste Generators', 'Waste Identification', 'Hazardous Waste', 'Incinerators', 'Solid Waste', 'Incompatible Wastes', 'Waste Management', 'Special Waste', 'Closures']
08/29/2024
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EPA’s hazardous waste regulations apply differently depending upon your generator category, which is determined by how much hazardous waste you generate each month. The more waste you generate, the more regulated you are.
A large quantity generator (LQG) of hazardous waste is a generator that meets any one of the following criteria:
- Produces over 1000 kg (220 pounds) of hazardous waste per month;
- Produces over 1 kg (2.2 pounds) of acute hazardous waste per month;
- Produces over 100 kg (220 pounds) of residue or contaminated soil from the cleanup of an acute hazardous waste spill; OR
- Accumulates more than 6000 kg (13,227 pounds) of hazardous waste on-site.
Scope
Hazardous waste generators must count up all the waste they generate each month to determine their generator category. In addition, they must not accumulate more waste than is allowed for their category at any one time.
There are three categories of hazardous waste generators:
- Very Small Quantity Generators (VSQGs, formerly known as Conditionally Exempt Small Quantity Generators);
- Small Quantity Generators (SQGs); and
- Large Quantity Generators (LQGs).
VSQGs generate the least amount of hazardous waste per month and LQGs generate the most.
Generators must comply with a specific set of requirements for their specific generator category.
Regulatory citations
- 40 CFR 261 — Identification and listing of hazardous waste
- 40 CFR 262.17 — Conditions for exemption for a large quantity generator that accumulates hazardous waste
Key definitions
- Acute hazardous waste: Any hazardous waste with a “P” waste code (or certain “F” waste codes). These wastes are subject to stringent accumulation and management requirements.
- Accumulate: To store hazardous waste on-site for a regulated amount of time before shipping it off-site. Generators have accumulation time limits as well as quantity limits.
- Biennial Report: A report submitted by hazardous waste LQGs and Treatment, Storage, and Disposal Facilities (TSDFs) (and Small Quantity Generators after 2020) to enable EPA and the states to track the quantities of hazardous waste generated and the movements of those hazardous wastes.
- Central Accumulation Area (CAA): An area where a hazardous waste generator collects marked and dated hazardous waste. Waste in a CAA may only be accumulated for 90 days or 180 days, depending on the generator’s hazardous waste category.
- Counting: Totaling the hazardous wastes at a given facility for a particular month in order to determine hazardous waste generator status.
- Cradle to grave: The time period from the initial generation of hazardous waste to its ultimate disposal.
- Designated facility: The TSDF that has been designated on the manifest by the generator. These facilities must have a RCRA permit (or interim status), or be recycling facility regulated under 40 CFR 261.2(c)(2) or 266, Subpart F.
- EPA identification number: The unique number assigned by EPA to each hazardous waste generator, transporter, or treatment, storage, and disposal facility.
- Episodic generation: The situation in which a generator’s status changes from one month to the next, as determined by the amount of waste generated in a particular month. If a generator’s status does in fact change, the generator is required to comply with the respective regulatory requirements for that class of generators for the waste generated in that particular month.
- Generator: Any person, by site, whose act first creates or produces a hazardous waste or used oil, or first brings such materials into RCRA regulation.
- Hazardous waste: Waste with properties that make it dangerous or capable of having a harmful effect on human health and the environment. Under RCRA, hazardous wastes are specifically defined as wastes that meet a particular listing description or that exhibit a characteristic of hazardous waste.
- Large Quantity Generators (LQGs): Facilities that generate more than 1,000 kg of hazardous waste per calendar month, or more than 1 kg of acutely hazardous waste per calendar month.
- Listed wastes: Wastes that are considered hazardous under RCRA because they meet specific listing descriptions. These lists are found in 40 CFR 261 Subpart D.
- Manifest (universal hazardous waste manifest): The paperwork that accompanies hazardous waste from the point of generation to the point of ultimate treatment, storage, or disposal. Each party involved in the waste’s management retains a copy of the RCRA manifest, which contains specific information about the waste.
- RCRA: The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, which is the nation’s solid and hazardous waste management law.
- Tanks: Stationary containers used to store or treat hazardous waste.
- Used oil: Any oil that has been refined from crude or synthetic oil that has been used and, as a result of such use, is contaminated by physical or chemical impurities. Used oil may be managed under the relaxed management standards at 40 CFR 279.
Summary of requirements
Basic requirements for LQGs:
- Identify all hazardous wastes generated.
- Obtain an EPA Hazardous Waste Generator ID number.
- Ship waste offsite within 90 days.
- Ensure there is at least one employee available to respond to an emergency at all times. This employee is the emergency coordinator responsible for coordinating all emergency response measures.
- Develop detailed, written contingency plans for handling emergencies and prepare a summary of these plans for emergency responders.
- Follow all accumulation and storage requirements, such as labeling containers, using proper containers, inspecting waste accumulation areas, etc.
- Train employees in their job-specific waste management duties along with all emergency procedures.
- Ship waste offsite using the hazardous waste manifest.
- Submit a biennial hazardous waste report to EPA or the state every even-numbered year.
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['Waste']
['Waste Generators', 'Waste Identification', 'Hazardous Waste', 'Incinerators', 'Solid Waste', 'Incompatible Wastes', 'Waste Management', 'Special Waste', 'Closures']
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