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Hazardous Waste Regulation Paper

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Hazardous Waste Regulation Paper
University of Phoenix – ENV 320
Megan Lade
April 18, 2016

Hazardous Waste Regulation Paper
“As late as the Civil War, pigs, goats, and stray dogs were free to roam the streets as "biological vacuum cleaners." In fact, the need to have animals available to eat the garbage was such a concern that Charleston, West Virginia enacted an ordinance in 1834 to prohibit vulture hunting because they ate the city's garbage” (Roberts, n.d.). Hazardous waste, in the US, is created by our rapid growth and need for continued development and improvements of various industrial technologies and products. Lawrence Wang stated in his article, Hazardous Waste Management (n.d.), that the term ‘hazardous waste’ refers to any raw material, intermediate product, final product, spent waste, accidental spill, leakage etc that are hazardous to human health and the environment (while being ignitable, corrosive, reactive, toxic, infectious, carcinogenic and/or radioactive).
What Is RCRA & CERCLA?
The two key regulations that govern hazardous waste in the US would be the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RSRA) and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act. (CERCLA). In 1976 the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) was developed to control hazardous waste from, what the EPA coined, the ‘cradle-to-grave’. This act covers the generation, transportation, treatment, storage and disposal of hazardous waste. Its main goal was to ensure waste was managed properly in that it did not affect human and environmental health (too much). Subtext in this act also sets forth detailed criteria for local municipal solid waste disposal facilities. Known to many as ‘Superfund’, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) of 1980 “created a tax on the chemical and petroleum industries and provided broad Federal authority to respond directly to releases or threatened releases of hazardous substances that may endanger public health or the environment” (Superfund: CERCLA Overview, n.d.). The monies collected in this superfund exceed one BILLION dollars in just five years and went towards the remediation of abandoned or uncontrolled hazardous waste sites.
How Are RCRA & CERCLA Different?
Todd Barnell and Jennifer Williams detailed the main difference between the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) very well in their article RCRA vs. CERCLA (July 2015), “The main difference between the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA) and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 is that RCRA is an approach to manage solid and hazardous waste at facilities that are currently in use while CERCLA is focused on the management and remediation of abandoned, non-operating sites with media contaminated with hazardous substance. Unlike CERCLA, RCRA facilities' owners and operators are known and are currently using, managing, or disposing of hazardous wastes. RCRA also regulates the transport of hazardous waste.” Another difference stated in this article pertains to the physical type of waste each act encompasses. CERCLA defines very comprehensive types of hazardous substances in that these materials may exist in waste that is not necessarily deemed ‘hazardous’ while RCRA is defined by its association with all hazardous waste, storage facilities and mode of disposal.
Conclusion
All in all the Environmental Protection Agency and other governing bodies are doing what they can to protect us, basically from ourselves! RCRA and CERCLA were developed to monitor and manage hazardous waste, production, maintenance and eventual disposal in the United States.

References
Barnell, T., & Williams, J. (July 2015). RCRA vs. CERCLA - How Do RCRA and CERCLA Differ? Retrieved from: http://www7.nau.edu/itep/main/HazSubMap/twrap_HzSubMap_rcra-cercla.asp
Roberts, Jon. (n.d.). A Brief History of Waste Regulation in the United States and Oklahoma – Department of Enviornmental Waulity. Retrieved from: http://www.deq.state.ok.us/lpdnew/wastehistory/wastehistory.htm
Superfund: CERCLA Overview. (n.d.). United States Enviornmental Protection Agency. Retrieved from: https://www.epa.gov/superfund/superfund-cercla-overview
Wang, Lawrence. (n.d.). Hazardous Waste Management: A United States Perspective. Retrieved from: http://www.deq.state.ok.us/lpdnew/wastehistory/wastehistory.htm

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