Hazardous Waste

Through the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), Congress directed EPA to regulate all aspects of hazardous waste. As a result, EPA developed strict regulations for the treatment, storage, and disposal of hazardous waste. States may implement stricter requirements than the Federal regulations as needed. Treatment and Disposal: Any process that changes the physical, chemical, or biological characteristics of a waste to minimize its threat to the environment. Storage: The temporary holding of waste before the waste is treated,

Check with all applicable local, regional, and national laws and regulations. Local regulations may be more stringent than

The implementation process of the RCRA has been a complex and controversial issue in the history of the EPA. It provide a complex problem because the EPA often dictates how hazardous wastes is identify and dispose of. For example, according to Sullivan, the author of Environmental Law Handbook recognizes the implementation process, the author writes “The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency(EPA) and states have implemented this mandate in extensive regulations issued under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976(RCRA) and the Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments of 1984.”(Sullivan 147 2014). The EPA policy implementation concepts functioned as the basis for the hazard identification and waste control. This model challenges society to protect the environment by isolating contaminants from the environment while at the same time addressing difficult regulations of hazardous wastes under the RCRA. Since the enactment of the act, it had experienced challenges because the regulation did and received much attention as a result of the hazardous waste classification. The most vital challenge implementing of the RCRA is the policy that rigorously limits on land disposal of hazardous wastes. Moreover, existing hazardous waste regulations do not create robust incentives for disposing of hazardous waste. The author recognized this challenge when he

While lithium batteries are not specifically included or exempted in the hazardous waste regulations, these batteries have some characteristics of toxic hazardous wastes. The reason for the uncertainty regarding the toxic characteristics of lithium batteries is because they can be effectively disposed as non-hazardous waste by discharging them fully. When completely charged or partially discharged, lithium batteries can be regarded as reactive hazardous waste due to the considerable amounts of un-reacted lithium in the battery ("Product Sheet", 2007).

Identified wastes in the current processes using the seven wastes as a guide to what should be looked for. The question was asked, “Why did this waste occur?” and, “What can be done to prevent it?”.

Baur, Richard C., et al. 2009, Investigation 7: How Can The Waste Be Made Useful?, Lab Inquiry in Chemistry. Belmont: Brooks/Cole, 2009.

At its inception, Superfund was initially asked to identify and clean-up hazardous waste sites. However, thirty years later the United States is facing additional new threats to the health and safety of the American people. The Superfund sites themselves are becoming “nightmares to deal with, due to disturbances and damage caused by extreme weather conditions brought on by climate change” (Treadman, 2010). The EPA website states, “hazardous waste sites can discharge and release large quantities of toxic substances when subject to flooding, tornados and hurricanes” (EPA, 2010). The additional costs of cleanup, and disruptions caused by extreme weather events have caused a tremendous financial burden on an already ailing

5. The discharge of all toxic chemicals, other wastes like sewage from ships, oily wastes, plastics and other forms of non-biodegradable rubbish should be strictly regulated and prohibited.

Superfund incinerator sites utilize controlled flame combustion to thermally destroy hazardous wastes. This is an effective method to clean up deserted or inactive hazardous waste sites and remedy environment preservation. The involvement of Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) as well as the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) is to evaluate superfund incinerator facilities health and safety programs.

Our society uses a lot of materials considered hazardous. They are used in, or are the byproduct of, industrial processes, power plants, the medical and pharmaceutical industries, and fuels. Much of the land transport of hazardous materials is the job of the trucking industry.

Waste burned in incinerators and combustion facilities (high temperatures burn waste more completely than in open burns)

Such kind of waste emits radiations from tens to hundreds of years. These reactive radicals make the sand or the water contaminated. It is known as mixed waste. The mixture cause hazardous chemical reactions and leads to dangerous complications.

Hazardous waste and its proper disposal have become a major sociological problem today due to its capability of contaminating the area in which we live and its potential to be lethal to all living things. In order for the United States and the rest of the world to save itself from a potentially life threatening problem they must fix the causes which lead to the improper disposal of hazardous wastes and like materials. Some reasons that hazardous waste has become a problem in the United States today is due to the breakdown in enforcing laws for the proper disposal of such wastes, a lack of initiative on big companies behalf to spend money on proper disposal, and the ease of disposing of such wastes illegally.

Congress passed The Solid Waste Disposal Act in 1965. The Agency of Environmental Safety considered this Act as the primary effort made by federal authority for efficient waste clearance technology. This act controls the dumping material; manage storage and management of solid, both and non-precarious and precarious wastage. It highlights the processes that are environmentally liable to dispose waste at the commercial, municipal, industrial and household levels (Tchobanoglous & Vergara, 2010). This was considered as primary initiative of a chain of systems focusing on resource management and air cleaning (Gerlak, 2005). There have been several major adjustments made to the Act with the reference to Resource Recovery and Conservation Act (1976). The involvement of federal

When a waste cause threat to human health, it is considered as hazardous (RCRA, 1978). According to RCRA of USA all the wastes are solid