Waste management laws
govern the transport, treatment, storage, and disposal of all manner of
waste
Waste (or wastes) are unwanted or unusable materials. Waste is any substance discarded after primary use, or is worthless, defective and of no use. A by-product, by contrast is a joint product of relatively minor economic value. A waste pr ...
, including
municipal solid waste
Municipal solid waste (MSW), commonly known as trash or garbage in the United States and rubbish in Britain, is a waste type consisting of everyday items that are discarded by the public. "Garbage" can also refer specifically to food waste ...
,
hazardous waste
Hazardous waste is waste that has substantial or potential threats to public health or the environment. Hazardous waste is a type of dangerous goods. They usually have one or more of the following hazardous traits: ignitability, reactivity, cor ...
, and
nuclear waste
Radioactive waste is a type of hazardous waste that contains radioactive material. Radioactive waste is a result of many activities, including nuclear medicine, nuclear research, nuclear power generation, rare-earth mining, and nuclear weapons ...
, among
many other types. Waste laws are generally designed to minimize or eliminate the uncontrolled dispersal of waste materials into the environment in a manner that may cause ecological or biological harm, and include laws designed to reduce the generation of waste and promote or mandate waste recycling. Regulatory efforts include identifying and categorizing waste types and mandating transport, treatment, storage, and disposal practices.
Waste determination
Waste determination is the process by which a particular material is classified as a "waste" subject to regulation. The question can become quite complicated, as for example determining whether a some material is "hazardous waste" under the U.S.
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), enacted in 1976, is the principal federal law in the United States governing the disposal of solid waste and hazardous waste.United States. Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. , , ''et seq., ...
.
Determination of whether a material constitutes a particular waste type may govern the manner in which the material must be handled from that point forward. For example, in the United States, non-hazardous
municipal solid waste
Municipal solid waste (MSW), commonly known as trash or garbage in the United States and rubbish in Britain, is a waste type consisting of everyday items that are discarded by the public. "Garbage" can also refer specifically to food waste ...
may be sent to a landfill, while used motor oil is deemed hazardous and cannot be dumped in landfills, but rather is subject to more stringent handling, storage, treatment, and disposal requirements.
Many other wastes may have their own individual definitions and unique handling requirements. In each case a "waste stream" may be identified - waste is generated when a previously useful item is discarded or abandoned, and then may flow through various defined treatment, recycling, and storage areas before arriving at a final designated disposal site.
Disposal standards
Disposal standards govern the permissibility, method, and location of disposal of a particular waste. Such standards may be designed to protect human health and comfort, and environmental values. A variety of methods exist to control disposal.
Waste disposal may be restricted entirely via a disposal ban. The most common and widespread such standard is a prohibition on
litter
Litter consists of waste products that have been discarded incorrectly, without consent, at an unsuitable location. Litter can also be used as a verb; to litter means to drop and leave objects, often man-made, such as aluminum cans, paper cups ...
ing. Where a jurisdiction has authorized a specific place or system for trash collection, deposition or abandonment of trash elsewhere may be subject to civil or criminal penalties. Other more specific disposal bans - from mandating that paint not be poured down drains, to specifying national repositories for radioactive waste - all act to govern the final resting place of various wastes. Still other wastes may be required to be separated for recycling, rather than disposal. All of these prohibitions are, in a sense, conditional, in that they do not outright ban the disposal of the material, but rather restrict the disposal location.
Waste disposal also may be restricted conditionally by requiring that a waste be treated in a specific fashion before it may be disposed of at a particular location. One such program is the
United States Environmental Protection Agency
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent executive agency of the United States federal government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it ...
's Land Disposal Restrictions under the
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), enacted in 1976, is the principal federal law in the United States governing the disposal of solid waste and hazardous waste.United States. Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. , , ''et seq., ...
Subtitle C hazardous waste management program. These rules restrict the land disposal (placement in
landfills
A landfill site, also known as a tip, dump, rubbish dump, garbage dump, or dumping ground, is a site for the disposal of waste materials. Landfill is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of the waste ...
, primarily) of hazardous waste without prior approved programs. The "disposal prohibition" mandates that hazardous waste cannot be disposed on land until it is treated to meet specified characteristics (acceptable ignitability, corrosivity, reactivity, and toxicity), or is treated by specified approved treatment methods. The "dilution prohibition" proscribes adding large amounts of water, soil, or non-hazardous waste in order to avoid specified treatment. The "storage prohibition" allows waste to be stored only for the purposes of accumulating for treatment, rather than simply stored indefinitely to avoid treatment.
Specific standards may also be adopted regarding the construction and operation of waste disposal facilities.
Landfills
A landfill site, also known as a tip, dump, rubbish dump, garbage dump, or dumping ground, is a site for the disposal of waste materials. Landfill is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of the waste ...
, for example, may be required to meet location restrictions to avoid geological faults or wetlands; to install liner systems and collection systems to minimize groundwater contamination from leachate; to adopt operation policies that minimize dust and other nuisances; to install methane removal or collection systems to eliminate
landfill gas
Landfill gas is a mix of different gases created by the action of microorganisms within a landfill as they decompose organic waste, including for example, food waste and paper waste. Landfill gas is approximately forty to sixty percent methane ...
; to be covered and otherwise closed upon decommissioning; and to operate environmental monitoring systems to ensure compliance.
Around the world
International law
International law
International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...
includes agreements related to international transport and disposal of hazardous waste:
China
*
China RoHS
China RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances), officially known as Administrative Measure on the Control of Pollution Caused by Electronic Information Products is a Chinese government regulation to control certain materials, including lead. The ...
European Union
*
Battery Directive
The ''Directive 2006/66/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 September 2006 on batteries and accumulators and waste batteries and accumulators and repealing Directive 91/157/EEC'', commonly known as the Battery Directive, regula ...
*
Landfill Directive
The Landfill Directive, more formally Council Directive 1999/31/EC of 26 April 1999 is a European Union directive that regulates waste management of landfills in the European Union. It was implemented by its Member States by 16 July 2001.
The D ...
*
Waste Framework Directive (as revised, 20 October 2008)
*
Waste Incineration Directive
The Waste Incineration Directive, more formally Directive 2000/76/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council
of 4 December 2000 on the incineration of waste (OJ L332, P91 – 111), was a Directive issued by the European Union and relates to ...
*
WEEE Directive
The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE Directive) is the European Community Directive 2012/19/EU on waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) which, together with the RoHS Directive 2011/65/EU, became European La ...
* Hazardous Waste Regulations (2005), revised 2009
United Kingdom
UK waste legislation is derived predominantly from EU governance and transposed into UK law via
Statutory Instrument
In many countries, a statutory instrument is a form of delegated legislation.
United Kingdom
Statutory instruments are the principal form of delegated or secondary legislation in the United Kingdom.
National government
Statutory instrument ...
s.
*
Animal By-Products Regulations (ABPR)
*
Best practicable environmental option (BPEO)
*
Certificate of Technical Competence
Certificate may refer to:
* Birth certificate
* Marriage certificate
* Death certificate
* Gift certificate
* Certificate of authenticity, a document or seal certifying the authenticity of something
* Certificate of deposit, or CD, a financial pro ...
(COTC)
*
Control of Pollution Act
Control may refer to:
Basic meanings Economics and business
* Control (management), an element of management
* Control, an element of management accounting
* Comptroller (or controller), a senior financial officer in an organization
* Controlling ...
*
Environment Act 1995
The Environment Act 1995c 25 passed under the ministerial tutelage of John Gummer, is a United Kingdom Act of Parliament which created a number of new agencies and set new standards for environmental management.
See also
*English land law
*UK en ...
*
Environmental Impact Assessment
Environmental Impact assessment (EIA) is the assessment of the environmental consequences of a plan, policy, program, or actual projects prior to the decision to move forward with the proposed action. In this context, the term "environmental imp ...
*
Environmental Protection Act 1990
The Environmental Protection Act 1990 ( initialism: EPA) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that defines, within England and Wales and Scotland, the fundamental structure and authority for waste management and control of emissions ...
*
Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme
The Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme, LATS, is an initiative by the UK government, through DEFRA to help reduce the amount of biodegradable municipal waste (BMW) sent to landfill.
How does it work?
The Waste and Emissions Trading Act 2003 pro ...
(LATS)
*
Landfill in the UK
Landfills in the United Kingdom were historically the most commonly used option for waste disposal. Up until the 1980s, policies of successive governments had endorsed the "dilute and disperse" approach. Britain has since adopted the appropriate E ...
*
Landfill tax
*
Landfill tax regulation
A landfill site, also known as a tip, dump, rubbish dump, garbage dump, or dumping ground, is a site for the disposal of waste materials. Landfill is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of the waste ...
s
*
Statutory recycling targets
*Waste (England and Wales) Regulations 2011, as amended in 2012, transposing the Waste Framework Directive into UK law
*
Waste Management Licensing Regulations
The Waste Management Licensing Regulations 1994 (S.I. 1994/1056) formerly applied in Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) to those persons involved in the collection, storage, treatment and disposal of controlled wastes. The regulations d ...
UK waste management facilities register for one or more of 28 standard permits, may opt for an exemption from licensing or complete a bespoke permit. Persons or organisations wishing to transport waste (other than their own) must purchase a waste carrier license. Producers of hazardous wastes are required (where they produce in excess of 500 kilograms per annum) to register as a hazardous waste producer.
The 2011 regulations were amended in 2012 following legal claims raised by the Campaign for Real Recycling, who argued that they did not correctly
transpose
In linear algebra, the transpose of a matrix is an operator which flips a matrix over its diagonal;
that is, it switches the row and column indices of the matrix by producing another matrix, often denoted by (among other notations).
The tr ...
the directive into the law of England and Wales. On 6 March 2013,
Mr Justice Hickinbottom ruled that the 2012 amended regulations did now fulfil the requirements of the European Commission’s revised Waste Framework Directive.
The
EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement
The EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) is a free trade agreement signed on 30 December 2020, between the European Union (EU), the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom), and the United Kingdom (UK). It provisionally applied from ...
of 2020 includes "reciprocal commitments" by each party "not to reduce the level of environmental or climate protection or fail to enforce its laws in a manner that has an effect on trade", which will include laws related to waste management.
[UK Government]
UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement: Summary
paragraph 92, published 24 December 2020, accessed 28 December 2020
United States
*
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), enacted in 1976, is the principal federal law in the United States governing the disposal of solid waste and hazardous waste.United States. Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. , , ''et seq., ...
(RCRA) – One of the main pieces of Legislation regarding
municipal solid waste
Municipal solid waste (MSW), commonly known as trash or garbage in the United States and rubbish in Britain, is a waste type consisting of everyday items that are discarded by the public. "Garbage" can also refer specifically to food waste ...
, hazardous wastes, and disposal issues.
*
(CERCLA) "Superfund"
*
Medical Waste Tracking Act
The Medical Waste Tracking Act of 1988 was a United States federal law concerning the illegal dumping of body tissues, blood wastes and other contaminated biological materials. It established heavy penalties for knowingly endangering life through ...
*
National Environmental Policy Act
The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is a United States environmental law that promotes the enhancement of the environment and established the President's Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). The law was enacted on January 1, 1970.Un ...
(NEPA) – Established the Environmental Protection Agency, set out requirements for Environmental Impact Reporting for various kinds of development.
US Regulatory bodies include:
*
United States Environmental Protection Agency
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent executive agency of the United States federal government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it ...
(EPA) - regulates generation and disposal of hazardous waste
*
United States Department of Transportation
The United States Department of Transportation (USDOT or DOT) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government. It is headed by the secretary of transportation, who reports directly to the President of the United States and ...
(DOT) - regulates transportation of hazardous waste
*
Nuclear Regulatory Commission
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is an independent agency of the United States government tasked with protecting public health and safety related to nuclear energy. Established by the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, the NRC began operat ...
(NRC) - regulates nuclear waste
In addition to laws implementing or advancing portions of the US laws, some US states have enacted notable laws on other waste and environmental subjects.
*
California Proposition 65 "The Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986" - a 1986 California initiative prohibiting the discharge of toxic substances into drinking water sources
*
Electronic Waste Recycling Act - a 2003 California law regarding disposal of consumer electronic wastes
References
{{waste, state=expanded
Waste law