A little known rule about hazardous waste accumulation

For those of you who are “small quantity generator” of hazardous wastes, did you know that you can store your waste for up to 270 days without a permit if you decide to ship your waste to a facility that is more than 200 miles away?

Federal regulation 40 CFR 262.34(e) states that if a generator generates between 100 and 1000 kg of hazardous waste in a calendar month (small quantity generator) and he “must transport his waste, or offer his waste for transportation, over a distance of 200 miles or more for off-site treatment, storage or disposal”, he may store his waste for up to 270 days.

The word “must” in the regulation seems to imply that this extension only applies when the generator has no other choice but to ship his wastes to a site that is more than 200 miles away. Someone called into EPA in 1987 and asked if the extension is still valid if there is a facility closer than 200 miles away. In other words, can the generator CHOOSE to ship his waste to a faciity that is more than 200 miles in order to to take advantage of this storage time extension even if there is another disposal facility closer by? 

The answer from EPA is yes.

If you go to EPA’s RCRA Online and type in RCRA online # 13000, you will find an EPA document explaining the rationale for this special extension for small quantity generators.

So this EXTRA 90 days in storage time extension is for you to use if you are a small quantity generator.

Why you need to keep track of how much hazardous waste you generate in a month

If you are a small quantity generator (someone who generates between 100 and 1000 kg of hazardous waste per calendar month), you should make a point of keeping track of how much waste you generate in a month. The law does not require you to do that. But it is to your great benefit to do so. Why?

Just read the last paragraph of an actual Hazardous Waste Inspection Report from the Pennsylvannia Department of Protection.  Click here dep-inspection-form.

Here is the text in the inspection report reproduced here for your easy reading: “1832 lbs of hazardous waste was transported offsite on August 3, 2001 & 3143 lbs of hazardous waste was transported offsite on august 31, 2001. It is apparent that more than 2200 lbs of hazardous waste was generated in August of this year. Therefore the facility should follow the federal and state requirements for a LQG of hazardous waste.”

The facility was in fact a SQG. The inspector was wrong.

But in the absence of any documentation that showed the facility never generated more than 2200 lbs of waste in a calendar month, the inspector assumed incorrectly that the facility generated all the wastes that were shipped out in August of 2001 in that month. The reality was that the wastes in the two shipments made in August had been accumulated over the past several months.

If the facility had kept track of its waste generation, the inspector would not have made the wrong assumption. All you need is a piece of paper showing the date a 55-gallon waste container becomes full.