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Recommendation MRW8 — Ensure MRW and hazardous substances are regulated
Recommendation MRW 8 — Ensure MRW and hazardous substances
are regulated and managed according to hazards, toxicity, and
risk.
Develop a long-term strategy to evaluate and, if needed, modify environmental laws and regulations that govern MRW. Analyze various approaches, including product-based preventive approaches, for addressing threats from MRW. The overall goal is to move towards prevention of toxics and waste. The path for reaching this goal is not yet clear. The work within this, and other related recommendations, will help identify the best path. The strategy will need to:
- Provide more incentive for the reduction of target risk factors, such as toxicity, mobility, and persistence, and ensure that wastes that exhibit these target risk factors are subject to the highest level of care the regulatory system affords, possibly regardless of quantity.
- Move Washington to a more comprehensive regulatory system that removes barriers and provides incentives to reduce the same target risk factors associated with products that contain hazardous substances.
- Analyze the effect of larger, prevention-focused system-change efforts on the MRW regulatory structure, and the need for smaller regulatory changes. The larger systemic efforts include a product stewardship framework, using the PBT and the Children’s Safe Products Act chemical lists, and potential statutory adjustments. Also, use information on MRW threats in Washington State, gained from studies done as proposed in Recommendation MRW 12.
- Look for ways to manage less-hazardous waste in a more cost-effective manner.
Milestone MRW J:
Ecology staff has researched regulatory change strategies for
preventing threats from MRW and hazardous substances. The
agency is moving in the recommended direction. Along with
Ecology, local governments focus on preventing threats from MRW.
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