The is for Environmental Compliance & Safety class - Assignment Example

Environmental Compliance & Safety The three protective actions in regulating hazardous wastes are as follows; first, the individual creating hazardous waste should keep track of the waste when it is moved from its area of production. The producer has to label it well for transportation. Second, the management sites for hazardous wastes must meet safety standards for disposal or treatment of waste. This limits danger from erupting. Third, many hazardous wastes disposal, must not be allowed. It should be allowed only if the waste will be treated to reduce hazardousness.

This reduces the chances of hazardous waste causing eminent danger (Dennison, 1995). The Clean Air Act enabled United States to enforce laws that meet minimum standards for air quality. The Act requires the EPA to come up with and enforce regulations that guard the general public against exposure to hazardous wastes.Factors determining whether negligence has been involved in releasing hazardous materials into the environment are knowledge of the generator of hazardous material and provisions in the environment laws.

A person is said to be negligible in releasing hazardous waste into the environment if he has full knowledge that he generates hazardous waste in his company and goes ahead and release it to the environment without considering its impacts to the environment (Dennison, 1995). Also, a person is negligible if he understands the provisions in Clean Air Act, but contravenes the provisions.Negligent action can be said to be a failure of doing something or observing the degree of care, which is required in the discharging of a responsibility, which the individual charged with negligence ought to have done to the injured party.

In this case, the negligent individual is liable to all the problems caused by failing to undertake his responsibility.RCRA categorizes hazardous waste into eight categories, which are ignitable waste, corrosive waste, reactive waste, acute hazardous waste, toxicity characteristic waste, waste from specific and non-specific sources, toxic waste and discarded unused chemical waste. These categories help the RCRA in grouping of the hazardous waste (Dennison, 1995). Furthermore, waste can be categorized using four criteria.

These are ignitability, reactivity, corrosivity, and toxicity. Ignitable wastes are those that are flammable when exposed to a source of fire. Reactive wastes are those that react with various elements and compounds in the environment. Corrosive wastes are those wastes that cause wear and tear of substances in the environment. Toxic wastes are those wastes that contain toxic substances, which may cause human poisoning when exposed to the environment (Blackman, 2001).An underground storage tank can be defined as a huge fiberglass or metal container and any piping system connected to the tank having at least 10% of its combined volume underground.

The system is constructed such that it fits underground for the purpose of storing liquid chemicals or other materials. The underground tank includes the tank itself, piping and ancillary system (Blackman, 2001). The underground storage tank reduces the dangers of explosion, fire, accidents and weathering. Most hazardous substances are stored in these underground storage tanks due to their nature.The criteria for recordkeeping time requirements associated with underground storage tanks differ from one state to the other since state requirements are different from federal requirements.

In general, the recordkeeping time requirement dictates that all hazardous waste generators must provide their records. The records are usually biennial (Dennison, 1995).ReferencesDennison (1995). Environmental; Reporting, Recordkeeping, and Inspections. New York: Wiley & Sons Publishing.Blackman (2001). Basic Hazardous Waste Management. Boca Raton: Lewis Publishers.