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The following terminology and information applies to requirements for wastes generated in Washington State. These requirements do not apply to solid waste, Household Hazardous waste or certain other wastes that are exempted or excluded from the regulations.
Designation is identification. Designation is a process used to decide if a waste is regulated as dangerous waste and to pick the right dangerous waste numbers to identify it.
Ecology regulations consider a substance to be dangerous or hazardous if it can catch fire, react or explode when mixed with other substances, is corrosive, or is toxic.
Unless it is exempted or excluded from the regulations, waste in Washington State must be designated before transportation or disposal . Ecology does not regulate usable products even if they are hazardous by nature.
Designation is described in the Washington Administrative Code, (commonly referred to as the WAC), Dangerous Waste Regulations, WAC 173-303-070 Exit Ecology. To properly designate a waste the designator needs:
Designation is done in a specific order. Following the steps in order lets you stop designating at certain points. Refer to Ten Designation Steps for detailed guidance.
Legally, the generator is always responsible for waste designation. The generator is in the best position to have knowledge of their waste generation processes.
A generator is "any person, by site, whose act or process produces dangerous waste or whose act first causes a dangerous waste to become subject to regulation". Dangerous Waste Regulations, WAC 173-303-040 Exit Ecology.
Generators often rely on the facility that treats, stores, disposes or recycles their waste (a TSDR), a consultant, or someone in their industry to do their designation for them. However, the generator's signature is always on the manifest to verify the designation.
Waste designation decides the generator's regulatory status and responsibilities. Washington State has three Hazardous Waste generator categories: Large Quantity Generator (LQG), Medium Quantity Generator (MQG), and Small Quantity Generator (SQG). Reporting, manifesting, and management requirements are different for each generator status.
See Generator Status and Requirements for further guidance on determining generator status, getting a RCRA site ID number, annual reports or pollution prevention plans.
Also see What is a Small Quantity Generator? Your Regulatory Status Under the Dangerous Waste Regs, Ecology Publication No. 96-404.
Designation results in four digit waste codes or waste numbers being assigned to the waste. Waste numbers are used to identify wastes on shipping manifests, and to decide how to safely treat waste for disposal. They are necessary to identify wastes for emergency response, annual reporting, pollution prevention planning and waste reduction planning.
Dangerous waste numbers are listed in the applicable sections of the Dangerous Waste Regulations, Chapter 173–303 WAC Exit Ecology.
Ten Designation Steps has brief descriptions of the basic federal and state waste numbers in the Dangerous Waste Regulations.
Refer to Dangerous Waste Numbers or Waste Codes Index to find complete descriptions or lists of:
Once the waste codes for each waste are identified, look at the table Quantity Exclusion Limits in the section on Generator Status and Requirements to find the QEL for each waste code.
The Quantity Exclusion Limit (QEL) of a waste is the quantity, by weight, at which the waste becomes regulated under the requirements for Medium Quantity Generators (MQGs) and Large Quantity Generators (LQGs), per WAC 173-303-070 Exit Ecology. Each dangerous waste number has one of the two different QELs:
Wastes that are exempted from the regulations are not dangerous wastes.
Wastes that are recycled in certain ways are exempted from the solid waste regulations. Recycling exemptions exist for wastes reused as ingredients, used or reused as substitutes for a commercial product or returned to their original process as feedstock.
If facilities claim that they are recycling materials, they must show that they have the necessary equipment to do so.
See Regulation of Dangerous Wastes Being Recycled, Publication No. 99-423, for more complete information.
The current exemptions are found in Chapter 173–303 WAC Exit Ecology - the Dangerous Waste Regulations, under Section - 017, Recycling Processes Involving Solid Waste.
Recycling guidelines for dangerous wastes such as spent batteries and used oil are found in Chapter 173–303 WAC Exit Ecology - the Dangerous Waste Regulations, under section -120, Recycled Reclaimed, and Recovered Wastes.
For a free copy of the above publications contact your Regional Department of Ecology Office, or Ecology HQ at (360) 407-6752 or e-mail your request to dzin461@ecy.wa.gov.
Some wastes are conditionally excluded (removed) from the Dangerous Waste Regulations and do not require full dangerous waste management. Generally, a waste has to be designated before it can be identified for an exclusion.
Excluded wastes are removed for several reasons:
Exclusions have very specific conditions. If the conditions are not met the waste is not excluded. For example - PCBs are not excluded if they are mixed with certain dangerous wastes.
Refer to the Washington State Code Revisors on-line list of the exclusions in WAC 173-303-071 Exit Ecology - including domestic sewage, household waste, treated wood wastes, and samples.
Refer to Household Hazardous Wastes .
There are three levels of designation for dangerous wastes:
Two ways to designate a dangerous waste are given in the Dangerous Waste Regulations, Chapter 173–303 WAC, section -070 (3) (c) Exit Ecology. The designator can either
Knowledge alone can be enough to designate a waste. Knowledge can be used either to show that a waste is a dangerous waste, or to show that it is not a dangerous waste. In either case the designator must be able to demonstrate that "such knowledge is sufficient for determining whether or not it designated and/or designated properly".
Example - If you know that the paint waste at a regulated site is old enough to be contaminated with lead you can dispose of it as a dangerous waste instead of paying for testing, then paying for dangerous waste disposal.
Knowledge about a waste also limits the number of tests that might be done.
Refer to Designation Using Knowledge .
Refer to Clues to Designation Knowledge for information about knowledge that can be gained from:
The Dangerous Waste and Toxics Reduction Program does not certify or give accreditation to laboratorys that perform dangerous waste designation analysis. However, two other Ecology regulations, the Clean Water Act and Model Toxics Cleanup, do require accredited labs for their purposes.
Choosing an Analytical Laboratory for Dangerous Waste Testing , Ecology publication #00-04-022, August, 2000 is available on Ecologys main web site at http://www.ecy.wa.gov/ . Look under Publications, and then under Hazardous Waste and Toxics Reduction.
Ecology maintains a List of Environmental Laboratorys accredited for water quality testing on Ecologys main web site at http://www.ecy.wa.gov/ . Look under Environmental Labs, and then under Environmental Laboratory Accreditation.
For a free copy of the above publications contact your Regional Department of Ecology Office, or Ecology HQ at (360) 407-6752 or e-mail your request to dzin461@ecy.wa.gov.
Samples must be taken to test a waste. The kind of sample and where and how it is taken depends on the nature of the waste, the purpose of the test and the test method.
Dangerous Waste testing regulations do not regulate how many waste samples to take or where to take them as long as one representative sample is done of each waste to be tested.
Refer to Dangerous Waste Sampling Requirements for more information about representative and composite samples, field sampling and links to suggested screening and sampling plans.
Where a specific test is specifically mandated in the Dangerous Waste Regulations it must be used (such as Method 1311 for the Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure Test). In some instances an alternative test can be used. Where a test is not specified any reliable method may be used for hazardous waste testing. In these cases the analytical method must provide enough information to make the regulatory decision.
Testing may not be needed if the designator has enough accurate knowledge to assign a waste code without doing a test. Refer to Designation Using Knowledge .
For more information refer to Dangerous Waste Test Methods.
Dangerous Waste test methods are described in four publications:
Tests required for waste designation under the Dangerous Waste rules have a different purpose and are different from the tests required by other federal programs such as the lead paint regulations under TSCA and HUD.