Posted on: January 23, 2025

Navigating RCRA Hazardous Waste Regulations

Navigating RCRA Hazardous Waste Regulations

If your business is involved in the generation or handling of hazardous waste, RCRA compliance is nothing to fool around with. Violating RCRA can result in heavy fines and environmental harm.  

What are these environmental regulations? What do you need to know to navigate RCRA hazardous waste regulations successfully? In this blog, we’ll guide you through the key aspects of RCRA hazardous waste regulations and highlight how online training can help ensure your team meets all compliance requirements efficiently.

What Is RCRA?

RCRA stands for the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976, which put the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in charge of setting standards for how to safely handle and dispose of hazardous wastes.

In reality, the RCRA is one of several different types of hazardous waste regulations. For example, HAZWOPER protects workers who deal with hazardous waste as part of their jobs. DOT HAZMAT regulations protect the general public from harm during the transportation of dangerous goods. There are also various environmental regulations for removing specific types of hazardous materials from their current location.

RCRA’s job is to ensure that hazardous waste is disposed of properly at the end of its usefulness. It does so by instituting a “cradle to grave” hazardous waste management system and holding whoever generates the material ultimately responsible for what happens to it.

What Is Considered RCRA Hazardous Waste?

Generally speaking, hazardous materials are those that can cause short-term or long-term health and safety complications for people around them.

While that may sound self-explanatory, each set of regulations comes with its own criteria for what “counts,” and the definition of RCRA hazardous waste is possibly the most complicated of all.

Determining whether a material counts as RCRA hazardous waste requires answering four questions. Sounds simple, right? It’s not. It’s a labyrinth of obscure definitions, statutory exclusions, listed and delisted substances, and vague qualifiers.

For example, the first question is whether the material is a solid waste. The problem is that RCRA compliance means that “solid waste” can actually be liquid, semi-solid, or gaseous. To clear things up, the EPA says it considers a material to be solid waste if it is abandoned, inherently waste-like, or recycled in specific ways.

Certain substances can be excluded from the RCRA hazardous waste definition – or excused from its restrictions – for many reasons. Maybe the economic impact of subjecting that material to RCRA scrutiny is too big. Maybe it’s already being regulated by other environmental regulations. Maybe the substance’s nature makes it impractical to regulate under RCRA standards.

Consequences to Violating RCRA

Violating the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) can result in serious penalties, including civil, criminal, and administrative actions. The severity of the penalties depends on the nature of the violation, such as whether it was intentional, repeated, or posed a significant threat to human health or the environment.

For example, criminal violations of the RCRA, such as knowingly transporting hazardous waste without proper permits or falsifying documents, can result in criminal fines of up to $50,000 per day for each violation and two to five years in prison. In extreme cases, penalties can result in individuals getting 15 years in prison and/or fines of a quarter million.

The Importance of Proper Handling & Disposal of RCRA Hazardous Waste

RCRA was introduced after we learned the hard way about the impact of improper hazardous waste disposal on both the environment and the public’s health.

Groundwater and air can be contaminated in ways that damage human health, as well as the food supply. We’ve seen examples of hazardous waste causing acute sickness, long-term health effects, fish die-offs, and rivers that can catch fire. Frequently, the waste had passed through so many hands that it was difficult to trace its origin, the recipients weren’t clear on the contents, and the responsibility for poor management was ambiguous at best.

As a result, hazardous waste regulations now require a manifest system that documents a description of the waste, the proper way to handle it, and all entities involved in its handling. And to make sure the buck stops somewhere, the RCRA specifies that the waste generator is the one ultimately responsible for its fate – there’s no fobbing off liability by using shady subcontractors.

The RCRA also requires hazardous waste to be treated, when possible, with the goal of destroying the waste, detoxifying it, or ridding it of its dangerous properties. Examples involve volume-reduction methods, high-temperature incineration, chemical neutralization, and biological treatment with waste-eating bacteria.

Waste that can’t be rendered harmless has to be stored and contained with measures like secure landfills or deep-well injection. These methods are designed and regulated to prevent leakage and contamination.

Benefits Of Hazardous Waste Certification and Training

If your business generates, stores, treats, or disposes of RCRA hazardous waste, you’re responsible for ensuring RCRA compliance. That naturally involves training workers in the RCRA hazardous waste management requirements relevant to their job so they understand how and why to follow the rules.

In addition to supporting compliance, training itself is a federal RCRA compliance requirement for most organizations. At the federal level, the training requirements depend on how the organization is classified.

Large Quantity Generator (LQG) Federal Training Requirements

Large Quantity Generators (LQGs) must provide training within 90 days of employment to relevant personnel, with annual subsequent refreshers. Training records are mandatory for all relevant personnel.

For RCRA compliance, personnel need training to ensure RCRA compliance in their duties if they:

  • work with hazardous wastes
  • oversee operations
  • have the ability to cause non-compliance

The specific requirements of the training program, including topics that need to be covered, can be found under 40 CFR 262.17(a)(7).

Treatment, Storage, and Disposal (TSD) Facility Federal Training Requirements

Workers who handle hazardous waste at Treatment, Storage, and Disposal (TSD) facilities have similarly rigorous training requirements to LQGs. Training is mandatory within 6 months of employment with annual refreshers. Specific topics must be covered, and training records must be kept.

The specific requirements of TSD facility training programs can be found under §264.16.

Small Quantity Generator (SQG) Federal Training Requirements

The federal training requirements for Small Quantity Generators (SQGs) are much less stringent, explicitly. For example, training records aren’t mandatory, and the frequency isn’t specified. The exact language of the training requirements for SQGs can be found under §262.16(b)(9)(iii).

While this may seem like license to skimp on training, the vague language means you may need to be more careful. After all, the requirement is for employees to be “thoroughly familiar” with relevant hazardous waste regulations.

Very Small Quantity Generator (VSQG) Federal Training Requirements

Very Small Quantity Generators (VSQGs) have no explicit training requirements for personnel, but since employees are still required to follow the rules, they should be provided with role-specific training of some kind.

State Training Requirements

Some states – like California – may have their own hazardous waste regulations with their own training requirements. Be sure to check your state and local regulations.

Complete RCRA Training Online

Online, self-paced courses like ours are one of the most convenient and cost-effective ways to meet RCRA training requirements.

Choose our 2-hour RCRA in Day-to-Day Operations course as an introduction or do a deep-dive with our 8-hour RCRA Refresher. If you’re subject to California regulations, be sure to check out the course version compliant in that state.

Enroll today!