EI
Environmental Information Ltd.
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Nearing 30 Years Since the Passage of RCRA & About 1/3 Of Hazardous Waste Generator’s Reports Missing From Biennial USEPA Surveys
Missing Hazardous Waste and Wastewaters Generators Reports Total to
Millions of Tons
Contacts: Karl Joyce
952/831-2473
Cary Perket
858/488-4760
Minneapolis, Minnesota – Despite the huge advancement in computer technology since the passage of RCRA in 1976, an accurate estimate of the total amount of hazardous waste and wastewater continues to elude environmental professionals. Accurate estimation is no longer limited by computing capabilities to compile and analyze thousands of hazardous waste generator and facility reports, but rather by the fact that many of these reports are simply missing.
Submitted generator reports indicate that at least 470 million tons are generated annually. Independently submitted reports from the highly regulated commercial RCRA facilities confirm acceptance of about 7.5 million tons. If the missing and under-reported generator shipments to only those commercial facilities are any indication, about 34 % of hazardous waste generation is not being reported.
“The extent of missing generator and facility reports makes it nearly impossible to track trends in hazardous waste and wastewater management,” says EI researcher Karl Joyce. “The best compliance with reporting requirements, and therefore the best data, is from commercial hazardous waste facilities. But this is a relatively small portion of overall universe of hazardous waste and wastewater.”
The EI Digest, one of EI’s research services, regularly collects voluntary surveys from the commercial hazardous waste management sector for purposes of the helping that business sector track changes in demand for commercial disposal, recycling and treatment from generators. Consequently, it is in a unique position to evaluate the quality of the USEPA collected data on off-site commercial hazardous waste disposal, recycling, and treatment.
“We find the recently released USEPA data on the
commercial hazardous waste sector to be relatively consistent with our own
historical data for that same year,” stated Senior Analyst Cary Perket. “We
estimate the overall market at 7 to 8 million tons, which is higher than the
USEPA due to missing hazardous waste facility reports in the USEPA data.”
Perket continues: “However, the biggest gap in the data appears to be with generator reporting. Large quantity generator reports are missing or under-reported for about 34% of the shipments reported by the commercial hazardous waste facilities. If this same reporting gap (34%) holds true for the overall universe of large quantity generators, the generation of hazardous waste and wastewater may be hundreds of million of tons higher than is being reported.”
The new report, Commercial Hazardous Waste Management in the United States 2003, focuses on what can be understood about the commercial sector’s role in hazardous waste management from hazardous waste generator and facility reports, supplemented by other data resources available from EI Digest research efforts. Specifically, the report examines commercial demand for energy recovery, deep well injection, land disposal, metal recovery, solvent recovery, stabilization, wastewater and other miscellaneous treatments.
Environmental Information Limited is a business research firm that specializes in providing information on markets to environmental service and technology firms. The Commercial Hazardous Waste Management in the United States 2003 available for a cost of $750 includes shipping and handling. Environmental Information Limited also offers a number of other research reports on the hazardous waste management that are described on Envirobiz.com (www.envirobiz.com). Environmental Information Limited can be contact is located at 5775 Wayzata Blvd, Suite 820, St. Louis Park, Minnesota, 55416. Further information or orders for the research report can be placed by calling (952) 831-2473.