Some business owners mistakenly believe that their generated waste is no longer their responsibility once it has been transported away from their facility.
This post is continued from a previous post, “Managing Universal Waste in Wisconsin Part I: Regulations, Best Practices and Recycling.” Read it here.
Batteries, pesticides, lamps and devices containing mercury: for many businesses, these specific types of hazardous waste, classified by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as “universal waste,” may be among the only hazardous wastes they generate.
Perhaps you serve as your company’s Environmental, Health and Safety manager or plant manager. It is becoming increasingly common for CEOs to set sustainability goals, and if you have not faced this scenario yet, chances are you will soon enough.
This post is continued from last week’s post, “Top 10 Frequently Asked Questions about Satellite Accumulation Areas (SAA): Part I.” If you haven’t read Part I, you can view it here.
For Large and Small Quantity Generators of hazardous waste, understanding federal and state regulations for satellite accumulation areas (SAA) can be confusing. If your company does not have an expert on staff, it can be downright daunting. But if your company generates only small quantities of hazardous waste at a time, an SAA can be a cost-effective solution that saves you money while protecting employees and environmental health.
As a waste generator, you may hear other companies talk about their waste diversion rate and ways their number gives them an edge in the market. A waste diversion rate, sometimes called a landfill diversion rate, is a sustainability measure of how much waste your company keeps out of landfills. That is a total calculation of the amount of waste your company reduces, reuses, or recycles.
Federal and state laws regulating pharmaceutical waste disposal are both numerous and strict. Unfortunately, they are also complex, since there are so many different products that are regulated. For example, a typical hospital pharmacy may stock between 2,000 and 4,000 different items, and each must be evaluated against state and federal hazardous waste regulations. Hazardous pharmaceutical waste is governed by the toughest set of regulations under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, around 6,600 facilities across the U.S. generate hazardous waste, with over 262 million tons of municipal solid waste reported in 2015.