When was rcra enacted

Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. JavaScript appears to be disabled on this computer. Please click here to see any active alerts. Congress passed RCRA on October 21, to address the increasing problems the nation faced from our growing volume of municipal and industrial waste.

To ensure the best search results, be sure to put quotes around the name of the document. Search EPA Archive. Because RCRA is a complicated law, understanding its provisions requires a great deal of interpretive guidance. RCRA's major goals are to reduce wastes and providing for conservation of resources. RCRA's other goals include protecting human health and the environment from potential harm caused by improper waste disposal and after being amended in from leaking underground storage tanks.

RCRA's management requirements for solid waste and hazardous waste can create a significant administrative and compliance burden on a campus. In most cases, individual states implement and manage the federal RCRA program, as they do with many other federal environmental programs. Although these approved state programs operate in lieu of the federal program, EPA retains regulatory oversight over every state program.

Although approved programs must provide at least equivalent protection as the federal RCRA standards, states have some flexibility with their own programs. Although no state program can be less restrictive than federal regulations, states may create more stringent requirements by law, rule, or interpretation.

In general, the RCRA program established the definitions of solid and hazardous wastes; the design and operational requirements for landfills, incinerators, USTs, etc. Solid Waste "Solid waste" is the regulatory term for "garbage," "trash," or "refuse. Hazardous Waste Hazardous wastes are a specific category of solid wastes. Waste Streams A waste stream or waste category refers to each type of waste a campus might generate.

For example, computer wastes are one waste stream, laboratory waste solvents are another. The U. All industries who generate solid wastes must comply with RCRA.

RCRA regulates the mangement and disposal of all solid and hazardous wastes. Depending upon your category, different requirements have to be met in order to comply with RCRA. It did, however, set minimum standards for local landfills.

It had little to no effect on generators of hazardous waste. The RRA emphasized the recovery of energy and materials from solid waste over disposal. Even with this amendment the regulations were still nothing like we know them today. However, due to the sweeping nature of the changes it introduced it remains synonymous with the regulation of hazardous waste in the United States.

With RCRA, for the first time the generation, transportation, and disposal of hazardous waste came fully under Federal regulations and state regulations if the state was authorized to manage RCRA and open dumping of waste was to be banned by Subscribe to my Monthly Newsletter. RCRA is legislation; it is not regulation. RCRA has been amended many times since its inception, each resulting in a change to the hazardous waste regulations in the CFR. Some amendments were additions, clarifications, and corrections of typographical errors.

Others resulted in significant changes to the regulations and affected a large number of the regulated industry. A full description of these amendments will need to wait for a future article. In brief, however, amendments to RCRA are as follows:. Used Oil Recycling Act of — Intended to encourage the recycling of Used Oil by exempting if from regulation as a hazardous waste if certain requirements are met.

It also created a category of large-volume wastes thought to be low-toxicity that were excluded from definition as a hazardous waste and would be categorized as Special Waste.