The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or the Agency) is adding hazardous waste aerosol cans to the universal waste program under the Federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) regulations. This change will benefit the wide variety of establishments generating and managing hazardous waste aerosol cans, including the retail sector, by providing a clear, protective system for managing discarded aerosol cans. The streamlined universal waste regulations are expected to ease regulatory burdens on retail stores and others that discard hazardous waste aerosol cans; promote the collection and recycling of these cans; and encourage the development of municipal and commercial programs to reduce the quantity of these wastes going to municipal solid waste landfills or combustors. This final rule is effective on February 7, 2020.
This final rule will affect persons who generate, transport, treat, recycle, or dispose of hazardous waste aerosol cans, herein referred to as aerosol cans, unless those persons are households or very small quantity generators (VSQGs). Entities potentially affected by this action include over 25,000 industrial facilities in 20 different industries (at the 2-digit North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code level). An estimated 7,483 of these facilities are large quantity generators (LQG). Most of these industries have relatively few entities that are potentially affected. The two top economic sectors (at the 2-digit NAICS code level) with the largest percentage of potentially affected entities are the retail trade industry (NAICS code 44-45), representing 69% of the affected LQG universe, and manufacturing (NAICS code 31-33), representing 17% of the affected LQG universe.