The EPA Proposed Rule
EPA's draft rule seeks to establish uniform, national standards for the handling and disposal of solvents accumulated on industrial wiping products. The National Proposed Rule Making is designed so that wiping products soiled with minimal amounts of solvent can be conditionally exempt from hazardous waste regulation if there is no meaningful risk proposed to human health or the environment.
EPA conditions are intended to be similar for both classes of wiping products laundered and non-laundered. Conditions that apply equally to both types of industrial wiping products, for instance, include requirements that:
- Soiled wipes and shop towels be kept in covered containers while held at the industrial facility.
- Soiled wiping products being transported to either an industrial laundry or municipal solid waste facility must be shipped in closed containers.
- Soiled wiping products must contain no free liquids at the time they are received by either an industrial laundry or a disposal facility
- EPA's NPRM uses a two-part standard to define no free liquids 1) soiled wiping products must not drip when held aloft by a corner and transferred from one container to another.
- Liquid must not accumulate at the bottom of a container used to hold or transport soiled wiping products destined for either an industrial laundry or disposal facility.
There are elements of the rule that treat the two different classes of wiping products differently however. Specific differences include:
- If the necessary conditions are met, laundered shop towels would be exempted from RCRAs definition of solid waste while non-laundered wipers would be exempted from the RCRA definition of hazardous waste.
- Soiled wipers would have to be transported in labeled containers. There is no similar requirement that laundered shop towels be transported in labeled containers.
- Soiled wipers that contain any amount of specific solvents listed by EPA in the NPRM could not be sent to a municipal solid waste landfill under any conditions. Effluent containing that the exact same solvents that is discharged during the laundering process could be released to publicly-owned water treatment plans (POTWs) however.
- Soiled wipers cannot be disposed of in municipal solid waste landfills if they contain more than 5 grams of an industrial solvent other than the nasties that are specifically precluded from landfill disposal by EPA There is no similar 5 gram limit on the amount of solvent that can be on a laundered shop towel at the time it is washed.
Benefits of the proposed rule
include the following:
- Uniform national standards would replace a hodgepodge of varying state and local policies regarding the proper handling of laundered shop towels. This is a stated goal of numerous groups that use wiping products.
- EPA's NPRM seeks to capture and recycle spent solvents before they are either disposed of in laundry waste water or regulated disposal facilities.
- Users of wiping products would have increased choice as finalization of the rule would allow them to more easily use either laundered towels, wipers or rags based on product performance and cost rather than RCRA compliance