Hazardous waste disposal in Houston, TX
Houston is shaped by the largest refining and petrochemical complex in the country, with a deep-water port serving it, and what that means for waste is decided by what those processes generate and by the Texas program the site operates under — not by the city line on a map.
The rule in Texas
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ)
Waste generated in Houston is regulated by TCEQ, which administers the authorized hazardous waste program for Texas over the federal baseline. What that adds for a Houston site, and where Texas differs from the state next door, is set out on the state page.
Who answers, and what that means
Houston is within a comfortable day of the Mobile, AL office, so scheduled collection is straightforward and a same-week response to something unexpected is usually workable — which covers most of what a generator there actually needs.
What generates it in Houston
The facility types the work around Houston, TX usually comes from, each with its own page on what that process produces and under which codes — the part that decides a price.
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- K051
- K048
- K049
- K050
Refineries
- API separator sludge
- Dissolved air flotation float
- Slop oil emulsion solids
-
- Counted under the benzene standard
- Metals-dependent
- Process-specific
- D002
Petrochemical Manufacturing
- Benzene-bearing aqueous waste
- Spent catalyst
- Tank bottoms and heavy ends
-
- F-listed / K-listed
- Process-specific
- F001 - F005
- Varies by formulation
Chemical Manufacturing
- Still bottoms and distillation residues
- Reactor residues and vessel cleanout
- Spent solvents
The routes a stream can take
Collection in Houston, TX is the easy half — where a stream goes afterwards is decided by its codes and by the Land Disposal Restrictions rather than by preference.
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- K051
- K052
- Metals-dependent
RCRA Hazardous Waste Disposal
-
- K048
- Counted under the benzene standard
- Inherited from the feed
Industrial Wastewater Treatment
-
- K049
- Process-specific
- F001 - F005
Fuels Blending Services
-
- K050
- Varies by unit
Roll-Off Boxes
-
- Unit-dependent
- Process-specific
Non-Acute Hazardous Waste Disposal
-
- Recoverable in many cases
- Varies by formulation
Off-Spec Product Disposal
Asked from Houston
The four things generators around Houston, TX ask before anything else, answered from the rules rather than from a brochure.
Greer collects in Houston, TX, dispatched from the Mobile, AL office on its own permits and its own equipment. There is no facility in Houston, TX itself — Greer runs two offices, and Texas is covered from one of them rather than from a depot in every city that has a page.
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) administers the authorized hazardous waste program for Texas, over the federal baseline rather than instead of it. So a waste generated in Houston is classified the same way it would be anywhere in the country, and the requirements around storing, moving and reporting it are Texas's.
An unidentified container in Houston, TX is a smaller problem this week than it is next year, so the first thing is to leave it alone: do not move it, and do not open it if anything has crystallized around the cap. Tell the Mobile, AL office where on the Houston, TX site it came from and what the process beside it does, and identification is arranged before collection rather than after.
No — for a site in Houston, TX, describing the process that makes the waste and roughly how much of it there is gets you a price. A Certified Hazardous Materials Manager profiles it from that, which is the work you are buying, and guessing a code yourself only transfers the liability for it back to you, in Texas exactly as anywhere else.
Elsewhere in Texas
Collection across Texas is not limited to the places with their own page. These are simply the ones near Houston, TX with enough demand to be worth writing about.
Something in Houston that needs identifying?
Describe the process that made it and roughly how much there is — Mobile, AL takes the call, and a Certified Hazardous Materials Manager reads every request before anyone quotes it.