11.8.4: Hazardous Waste, RCRA and CERCLA
Hazardous waste is typically industrially-produced waste that is ignitable, corrosive, reactive, or toxic; meeting specific criteria established by the EPA. Two key federal laws regulate hazardous waste: the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA, 1976) and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA, 1980), also known as the “Superfund”. The first, RCRA, gave the EPA authority for regulating both hazardous and solid waste management, including setting standards for sanitary landfills. It requires tracking of hazardous materials from “cradle to grave”, or from production, to transportation, use, and eventually disposal and treatment (Frumkin, 2016). The most common method for disposing of hazardous waste is underground injection, where hazardous waste is deposited into deep wells in the ground. Care must be taken, however, that groundwater aquifers are protected (Seabert et al., 2021). The second law, CERCLA, set up a fund to address already existing hazardous waste sites that had been abandoned, and created the ATSDR (see Clean Air, above). To create this fund, taxes are levied on the industries most commonly responsible which produce petroleum and other toxic chemicals. If the polluter can be found, they are held responsible for paying for the cleanup, but if not, then the superfund does. The EPA has identified over 300,000 waste sites, but only about 2,000 of them were deemed hazardous enough to go on the National Priority List (NPL) and be targeted for cleanup (Frumkin, 2016, Seabert et al., 2021). As of June, 2024, the current list has 1340 sites, 457 deleted sites (where cleanup and remediation has been completed), and 39 proposed sites to be added to the NPL (EPA, 2024).