CircuiTree - January 2009 - (Page 38) Environmentally Speaking By Fern Abrams New DSW to Lighten Load on Industry, Environment F or those of you who read my column regularly, this one may surprise you. Instead of complaining about a poorly designed regulation, misguided legislation, or a greenwasher’s false claims, I actually have something nice to say. And it just so happens to be about the U.S. EPA. In the 1970s, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) was published with the intent of encouraging recycling and regulating waste. However, the regulation often had the opposite effect because the EPA overstepped its authority by regulating secondary materials as hazardous waste even though they hadn’t been discarded. For as long as I’ve worked in the electronics industry, one of our issues has been the requirement that electroplating sludge (F006) be handled and treated as a hazardous waste. The requirement, in effect, raised the cost of recycling this valuable source of copper. Now, the EPA has done the right thing. With the revision of the definition of solid waste (DSW) under the RCRA, the EPA has finally taken steps to put the “Resource Conservation and Recovery” back into RCRA. The final rule excludes secondary materials from RCRA hazardous waste regulations if the material is recycled according to certain specifications finalized in the final DSW rule. The new rule removes regulatory barriers that inhibited the recycling of manufacturing wastes, potentially saving the industry millions of dollars and simultaneously providing an environmental benefit. IPC spent several years aggressively lobbying the EPA and is excited to see industry’s viewpoint taken into account in the final DSW rule. Due to IPC’s comments, the final rule allows for offsite recycling, the use of a middleman to aggregate small amounts of secondary materials, ordinary business records to be used as sufficient documentation, and more reasonably allocates responsibility. In early drafts of the DSW rule, recycled secondary materials would be exempt from RCRA hazardous waste regulations only if the secondary material was recycled January 2009 • circuitree.com at the generation site. Based on IPC comments, the final DSW rule now exempts secondary materials recycled offsite from RCRA hazardous waste regulations if they are recycled according to specific requirements. The inclusion of offsite recycling in the final DSW rule is a huge victory for IPC and the electronics industry. The recycling of copper from wastewater sludge exemplifies why offsite recycling is critical for the electronics industry to benefit from the new rule With the revision of the definition of solid waste under the RCRA, the EPA has finally taken steps to put the “Resource Conservation and Recovery” back into RCRA. as sludge is recycled at smelting facilities, not at PCB manufacturing facilities. Under the new regulation, recycled materials are exempt from RCRA hazardous waste regulations only if they are legitimately recycled according to certain stipulations. The responsibility for determining legitimacy lies jointly with the generating facility; the middleman or intermediate facility, if there is one; and the recycling facility. Each facility involved is required to show proof of legitimacy to the EPA and keep records of all shipments of secondary materials. Four criteria must be met for a secondary material to be considered legitimately recycled: the secondary material must provide a useful contribution to the recycling process, the recycling process must produce a valuable product, the secondary material must be managed as a valuable commodity, and the concentrations of hazardous constituents in the recycled material must be compared to those in an analogous product. As a direct result of additional IPC comments, ordinary business records such as invoices, confirma- tion receipts, Department of Transportation records, and bills of lading can be used to show legitimacy. IPC also extensively commented on allowing a middleman, or intermediate facility, to aggregate small volumes of secondary materials. Small- and mediumsized plants do not typically produce enough secondary materials to deal directly with a smelting facility; therefore, they are not able to directly recycle the secondary materials they produce. In the final DSW rule, an intermediate facility may now aggregate small amounts of secondary materials, allowing small- and medium-sized businesses to recycle secondary materials outside of RCRA hazardous waste regulations. Another important change made on the basis of IPC comments is that the final DSW rule more reasonably allocates responsibility. If the generator abides by all the necessary regulations and obtains the proper documentation prior to shipping the secondary materials, it is not held responsible for any noncompliance taken place after the shipment; the facility in which the violation occurred is held liable. The regulatory framework of the final DSW rule provides more recycling opportunities and is both economically costefficient and environmentally beneficial. The exclusion of solid and hazardous wastes from RCRA hazardous waste regulations is a huge victory for industry and the environment. By being able to reuse certain inputs, there will be less dependence on virgin resources extracted from the environment. The final DSW rule encourages recycling among all sectors and therefore meets RCRA’s objective to promote alternate methods of disposal. To view a copy of the rule, visit http://www.epa.gov/ epawaste/hazard/dsw/rulemaking.htm. ■ Fern Abrams is IPC’s director of government relations and environmental policy. She is based in Washington, D.C. Fern can be reached by phone at 703-522-0225 or by email at FernAbrams@ipc.org. 38 http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/hazard/dsw/rulemaking.htm http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/hazard/dsw/rulemaking.htm http://www.circuitree.com
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