RCRA TSDFs Definition
The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, or RCRA, is a comprehensive U.S. law that protects the environment by regulating hazardous and nonhazardous solid wastes. Facilities that treat, store or dispose of hazardous wastes must operate under permit and in compliance with RCRA. Such facilities are called treatment, storage and disposal facilities (TSDFs) or hazardous waste management facilities. Hazardous waste generators qualify as TSDFs if they treat or dispose of their own wastes, as do generators that keep their hazardous wastes on site for more than three months.
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Types
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Because no one technology or approach suits all wastes, treatment, storage and disposal methods are as diverse as hazardous wastes themselves. TSDFs that offer an array of options are able to accept a greater variety of wastes.
Treatment Facilities
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Hazardous waste treatment involves altering a waste's physical, chemical or biological properties to render it less harmful. While some treatments make a waste safer to store, transport or dispose of, others derive resources or energy from the waste in the process of treating it. Incineration is a treatment that destroys hazardous components while reducing the waste's volume. Boilers and industrial furnaces harness the energy of waste combustion. Chemical treatments such as oxidation and neutralization stabilize wastes, reduce their corrosivity or make them less toxic. Land treatment units disperse a hazardous waste on soil and allow sunlight and soil microbes to break down the hazardous components.
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Storage Systems
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Temporarily holding hazardous wastes can involve portable containers, stationary tanks, containment buildings, open waste piles, surface impoundments or other storage systems. Waste piles and surface impoundments such as holding ponds and settling lagoons must employ a durable liner system to keep hazardous constituents from contaminating the underlying soil and groundwater.
Land Disposal
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Hazardous waste landfills must contain hazardous waste on a permanent basis without releasing contaminants to the environment. They accept only nonliquid wastes and employ measures to detect and prevent wind dispersal, leachate leakage and runoff. Site management and monitoring must continue even after the facility permanently closes.
Underground Disposal
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Underground disposal methods include burial in a geologic repository such as a subterranean mine or cave, a salt bed formation or a salt dome. Another common disposal method for liquid hazardous waste is deep injection, which involves pumping the waste far underground through a well. Underground injection must avoid contaminating drinking water aquifers and inducing earthquakes. In the 1960s, deep injection of hazardous wastes from the manufacture of chemical weapons at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal near Denver, Colorado, resulted in increased seismic activity in the Denver area. Pressurized liquid waste forced apart fault surfaces and allowed them to slip past one another, causing earthquakes.
Requirements
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TSDF owners must locate their facilities in a manner that is mindful of the surrounding community and environment. Through permits, record keeping and periodic reporting, they must document their compliance with applicable regulations. During operation, TSDFs must control their air emissions and avoid impacting the soil and groundwater. Groundwater monitoring wells and sampling regimens provide a means to detect contamination. In case of release to the environment, TSDFs must investigate the release and clean up any soil or groundwater contamination. Once they cease operations, TSDFs must close in a way that eliminates any future threat to human or environmental health. Post-closure monitoring or other ongoing management is often necessary. TSDF owners must provide financial assurance that they have the resources to close the facility or respond to emergency situations in case of release.
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