RCRA hazardous waste disposal
This is the general page. Before a stream can be priced, packaged or sent anywhere, one question has to be answered: is it a hazardous waste under RCRA, and if so, why. Everything else follows from that answer, including which of the other services on this site applies.
There are only two ways a waste becomes hazardous
A waste is hazardous because it is listed, or because it exhibits a characteristic. Listed means it appears on one of the four lists — F for processes common across industries, K for specific processes in specific industries, P and U for discarded commercial chemical products — and it carries that code because of where it came from, whatever the analysis says. Characteristic means it behaves a certain way on test: ignitable, corrosive, reactive, or toxic above a regulatory level. The difference decides almost everything downstream. A characteristic waste that is treated until it no longer exhibits the characteristic stops being hazardous on those grounds; a listed waste does not, and under the mixture and derived-from rules it carries its listing into anything it is mixed with or turned into. That asymmetry, not the name of the chemical, is what sets the cost of a stream.
What goes this way
The streams rcra hazardous waste disposal handles, and what each one is under the rules — with acceptance decided by a profile rather than by a name on a drum.
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F / K / P / U
Listed wastes
Hazardous because of the process or product they came from. The code survives treatment and dilution.
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D001 / D002 / D003
Ignitable, corrosive and reactive wastes
Hazardous by how they behave. Flash point, pH, and reaction with water or under shock.
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D004 - D043
Toxicity characteristic wastes
Hazardous because a leaching test shows a regulated constituent above its limit.
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Inherited
Mixtures and treatment residues
Sludges, ash and filtrate produced from treating a listed waste, which generally carry the listing with them.
When this is not the right route
The cases where rcra hazardous waste disposal is not what you want, and what to use instead.
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The waste is on the P-list, or you generate very small quantities of something acutely hazardous
Go to Acute Hazardous Waste Disposal -
You already know it is ordinary hazardous waste and you need it collected
Go to Non-Acute Hazardous Waste Disposal -
You are trying to find out whether a material is hazardous at all
Go to Nonhazardous Waste Disposal
What you get back
The records rcra hazardous waste disposal produces, and what each one is evidence of — because the liability for a waste stays with the generator from the moment it is created until it is destroyed.
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The waste profile
The characterization itself, written down: what the stream is, which codes apply and the reasoning behind them. It is the document every other one depends on, and it is yours to keep and to update when the process changes.
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The signed manifest, returned
EPA Form 8700-22 comes back signed by the designated facility. Generators keep their copy for three years, and chasing one that has not arrived is a generator obligation rather than a courtesy.
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The destination record
Certificate of destruction or of disposal depending on where the stream went, which is the difference between the waste no longer existing and the waste being somewhere specific.
Who sends us this
The facility types that usually need rcra hazardous waste disposal, each with its own page on what that process produces and under which codes.
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- F001 - F005
Manufacturing
- Spent solvents from parts washing
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Chemical Manufacturing
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Metal Manufacturing & Plating
Before you ask for a price
What generators ask about rcra hazardous waste disposal, answered from the rules rather than from marketing copy.
You do. The generator makes the hazardous waste determination and carries the liability for it, which is why it is worth having a Certified Hazardous Materials Manager do the characterization with you rather than guessing a code you will then be answerable for.
No. A listing attaches because of origin, so an analysis showing low concentrations answers a different question than the one the listing asks. Testing is how you establish a characteristic, not how you remove a listing.
Describe the process that produced the material and roughly how much there is. Profiling from process knowledge is the work, and it is the part that decides everything else.
Answered in full
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What counts as hazardous waste?
Under RCRA a material is hazardous waste if it is first a solid waste, and then either appears on one of the EPA's four lists —…
Describe the stream. We will tell you the route.
A description of the process and a rough quantity is enough to start. A Certified Hazardous Materials Manager reads every request, and sometimes the answer is a different service than the one you asked about.