BEM3701 Hazardous Waste management

Contingency Plan

You are a newly hired environmental manager at a small college in the United States. You are asked to write a hazardous waste management plan for your facility, a Large Quality Generator (LQG). The college creates waste via chemistry laboratories, research activities, and maintenance activities. Using your textbook, the CSU Online Library, and other resources, describe the basic components of your plan and why each is needed. You are not required to write the entire plan, however, you must identify the key sections of the plan and why you would include them.

In your essay, be sure to address the following topics:

1. how you will manage hazardous waste on-site,
2. how you will address emergency response,
3. personnel training,
4. reporting and recordkeeping,
5. permitting,
6. containment buildings and facility requirements, and
7. planning and notification.

Overview Of Hazardous Waste Management

The basic standards that govern and regulate the hazardous waste generators in the United States are provided for under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). According to this    

Act, all persons producing hazardous waste are subject to comply with the regulations in title 40 of the Code of Federal Regulation (CFR) in the 262 part. The regulations are purposely enacted to see to it that, all wastes that are hazardous are identified and handled with utmost appropriateness and safety to prevent harm to the environment and at the same time ensuring that the day to day business activities are not interfered with (Towne, 2013) .  As the environmental manager at the college I have been hired, I find waste management critical. As such, this essay details a proposed hazardous management of the facility.

Managing Hazardous Waste On-site

At this point, the hazardous waste is determined and safely accumulated. The hazardous waste determination shall involve the waste generator finding out if a waste is truly regulated or not (Towne, 2013). Essentially, understanding how a waste turns out to be hazardous is a critical measure by the generator to see to it that he/she devises proper disposal procedures to avoid lethal impacts on both the human health and the entire environment. In determining and labeling a waste as hazardous, the following characteristics of the waste shall be evaluated; corrosivity, toxicity, ignitability, reactivity and shall be assigned the D code (Environmental Protection Agency , 2001). For example, D001, D002 and, D003 constitute ignitable, corrosive and reactive wastes respectively. After determination, waste accumulation follows. As regards accumulation, the determined waste is put into a Central Accumulation Area following the ADEQ regulations. While storing, care must be taken to ensure separation of wastes that are chemically incompatible. Also, in the Central Accumulation Area, fully-functioning safety equipment including spill cleanup materials, eyewash and fire extinquishers shall be installed. On a weekly basis, Central Accumulation Area shall be inspected to a check a number of things among them; the condition of the containers, labeling of wastes and coding appropriateness of the containers.

Emergency Response

The designee or emergency coordinator shall address emergencies at all times (British Columbia. Ministry of Environment. Hazardous Waste Management Program 2015). There shall be a phone installed for the specific purpose of reporting incidences of hazard wastes. The call shall be directed to the emergency director whose number will be posted on this phone. Among the incidences that shall be regarded emergencies include unauthorized access, spills and fire. Also, any threat to the health of humans outside of the facility, after the local authorized have been contacted, the National Response Centre shall be contacted immediately with the following information: EPA ID number, address and name of facility; type of the hazardous waste; the amount of the materials; type , time and date of the incident; and injury extent.

Training

Customized training shall be offered to the individuals based on their role and waste program. The generator shall be trained to determine if a particular material is hazardous or not. Also, the generator will be trained on classification of wastes and how to handle them. The training shall take a considerably long period of 6 months and shall constitute classroom sessions and practical. As for the Environmental Health and Safety staff, training shall be on managing the hazardous waste, shipping of DOT hazardous materials as well as training on the fire extinguisher (Environmental Protection Agency , 2001). The training shall be done on an annual basis with some refresher trainings after every 6 months.

Recordkeeping

The hazardous waste shall require a comprehensive record keeping. Among the requirements, for proper record keeping, include, the annual declaration shall incorporate a waste minimization report, keeping records of the analysis of any waste sample waste sent for analysis (Keep for 3 years), the minimum time of hazardous waste manifests to be kept on site should be at least 3 years.

Permitting

Before materializing the waste management program, approval must be sought from appropriate authorities. In this case, permitting, shall be done by Department of Environmental Quality upon assessment of the proposed plan as provided for by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations, 40CFR260-262 (EPA, 2016). 

Containment Facility And Buildings Requirement

The containment facility and the building must be PCRA permitted and follow the standards laid down by EPA. For example, man-made materials must be used to construct the building, completely closed, must have dust controls, the contact surface must be attuned with waste, and must be strong enough not to fall (Healey, Justin, 2010). Also, there should be a sound leak detection system.

Planning and Notification

The planning and notification as regards the management plan should appropriate and well coordinated.  Notification shall comprise both external and internal notifications (Savage, 2003). There shall be elaborate flow charts and checklists installed in the facility containing the phone numbers of persons to be involved and external agencies in case of emergency.

References

British Columbia. Ministry of Environment. Hazardous Waste Management Program. (2015).

Guidelines for Preparing Contingency Plans for Carriers of Hazardous Waste. Ministry of Environment.

Environmental Protection Agency . (2001). Mnaging your Hazardous Waste: A Guide for small buiness . EPA.

 EPA. (2016). Hazardous Waste Generator Regulatory Summary | Hazardous Waste Generators | US EPA. Retrieved September 24, 2017, from https://www.epa.gov/hwgenerators/hazardous-waste-generator-regulatory-summary

Healey, Justin. (2010). Recycling and managing waste. Thirroul, N.S.W: The Spinney Press.

Towne, L. E. (2013). The Contingency Plan. Cork: BookBaby.

Savage, G. M. (2003). Basic hazardous waste management. Waste Management, 23(6), 555-556. doi:10.1016/s0956-053x(03)00057-6