Document XzoYpe6wgQpLM7gVyygbb965w

500 FIFTH AVENUE* NEW YORK, N.Y. 10110 *(212)354-1 130 November 24, 1980 To: CGA Vinyl Chloride Committee Subject: Proposed Rule, Environmental Protection Agency Gentlemen: The attached notice from EPA calls for comment by January 1981 on some revisions to the testing requirements for vinyl chloride as a "Hazardous Air Pollutant". The Administrator states his determination that it is not necessary to follow the usual procedure of notice, industry comment, hearing and agency response because the revisions are "minor and technical". Please determine if cognizant personnel in your company have received this notice directly or through another referral circulation and advise on the return form attached. A CGA comment, if any by the Committee, should be drafted before the close of 1980 in order to make sure of its preparation and transmittal by the required date. Because of the deadline for comment to EPA, it will not be feasible to prepare or coordinate a CGA reply as an agenda item for the next regular meeting of the Vinyl Chloride Committee which will be held at the Fairmont Hotel, San Francisco during the 68th Annual Meeting of the Association, during the week of January 25, 1981. (Action taken and additional discussion can, of course, be considered and this item will appear on the published agenda.) To effect a timely review of this notice and draft CGA comment, it is requested that you complete the enclosed reply form addressed to Chairman E. J. Wilcox, copy to this office for summary and committee file. Thank you. Very truly yours JCC:Is Attachments COLOR!TE 017087 T / ( TO: CGA VINYL CHLORIDE COMMITTEE RE: EPA Notice of Rulemaking Changes AO CFR Part 61 AP-FRL 1563-1 1. On the referenced notice as published in the FEDERAL REGISTER, my comment is as follows: (Use reverse or additional sheets if necessary) COMMENT 2, A separate response to EPA for my company: - - ------ _____ * is being prepared will be prepared " - not planned ~ 3. Contact on this subject, if other than myself, is : Name -- Address Zip Code Telephone # PLEASE RETURN TO: E. J. Willcox Mgr. Rail Fleet Diamond Shamrock Chem. P.0. Box 1000 Pasadena, TX 77501 Co. cc: CGA OFFICE J.C. Crawford PLEASE RETURN BY DECEMBER 29, 1980. --:--NAME COMPANY________ - , a-r TELEPHONE # ZIP CODE COLORITE 017088 Xx/ 7/2.Z To RECEIVED JOSEPH L EEELtF JEFOKE H . KECKldAN CHARLE ? y meehaN H BORCHESAXJ.JR ROBERT P. TITR^AX v'A'.'NE V . HII_L >:aR7IX *. EERCOVIC3 JOHN S ELDRHD JO'IPE KjLDLFY.JR. CAROLE C, KaHRIE XICHAI. F MORRONE LaRFY S, SOLOMON JOHN DCSECE CHRISTINL, a MEAGHER SEiR:_ry s.fujimoto 1AVRINCE P. BAiPRiy DEBORAH SEER THIXEEP C DOGGLaS JAftRETT EDWARD E.KORVER I_AVV OFFICES Rellir axd Heckman USO 17V STREET.N. V sriTZ iooo Washington. t>. c. 2oo36 July 8 , 1980 JUL 1 6 1980 H T. GOTTESMAN TELEPHONE 202 -as 7 -uoo L'aI^E ADDRESS' EELNIA-V WRITERS DJRHC7 DIAL NUMBER : 202) 457-1116 A--('CC'VVA'Ur 4^3. ,0^ siX&jfcLa -ftji PVC ^Xcrxu^a. /u/X^KXa t ~ftLd~ VP/i wp pl4**t~s*Xv^ tx ^c^x^Xc. t*r*-dL The^SP^-PVC Safety Group TO: ^."^6- The SPI-PVC Manufacturing Technology Cominittee The SPI-PVC Health Committee The SPI-PVC Communications Committee Re: SPI-VCM/PVC Identification and Listing of Hazardous Wastes Under RCRA Ladies and Gentlemen: In our letter of May 23, 1980, we outlined the regulations promulgated by EPA for the identification and listing of hazardous wastes. As the memorandum attached to that letter stated, Section 261.3 defines the term "hazar dous waste" to include, among other things, all mixtures of solid waste and one or more listed hazardous wastes unless excluded by rule making. Because Section 261.33 classifies vinyl chloride (the monomer)in pure or off-specification form as a hazardous waste, we have received numer ous inquiries as to whether the regulations classify as hazardous any waste containing vinyl chloride. As explained on page 6 of the attached memorandum (a revised version of the earlier memorandum), the intent of Section 261.33 was to encompass only those materials which were being discarded in a pure or off-specification form. The intent of Section 261.3, in combination with 261.33, was to encompass only Section 261.33 materials and those materials which would have been Section 261.33 mate rials but for the fact that they were mixed with another substance after their intended use in the commerical manu facturing process had ceased. Therefore, a manufacturing process waste containing vinyl chloride would not be deemed a hazardous waste when ready to be discarded simply because vinyl chloride is listed as a hazardous waste when ready to be discarded. COLORITE 017089 July 8 , 1980 Page two KXIXER -AX'D HEt 1. MJiX' Process waste from PVC polymerization operations may, however, still be classified as a hazardous waste, but only if it exhibits the characteristics of ignitability (Section 261.21), corrosivity (Section 261.22), reactivity (Section 261.23) or Extraction Procedure (EP) toxicity (Sec tion 261.24). A waste exhibits the characteristic of EP toxicity if the extract from a representative sample con tains any of the toxic contaminants identified in the NatiomO Interim Primary Drinking Water Standards (NIPDWS) in concen trations 100 times greater than specified in the Standards. At present, however, there is no NIPDWS standard for vinyl chloride. Therefore, PVC processing waste would not demon strate EP toxicity based solely on the presence of vinyl chloride. The foregoing is subject, of course, to the sched uled Fall promulgation of a generic hazardous waste listing of batch residues from the batch production - of chlorinated polymers. If you have any further questions or comments re garding this matter please do not hesitate to contact us. Cordially yours, Attachments COLOR!TE 017090 MEMORANDUM To: Joseph E. Hadley, Jr. From: Lawrence P. Ealprin Date: June 27, 1980 Re: Final and Interim Final Rules Concerning the Identification and Listing of Hazardous Waste Issued by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to Implement the Solid Wastes Disposal Act as Amended by the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). EPA's regulations concerning the identification and listing of hazardous waste, 40 C.F.R. 260 (Hazardous Waste Management System: General) and 40 C.F.R. 261 (Identi fication and Listing of Hazardous Waste), were published in the Federal Recister on Kay 19, 1980 (45 Fed. Reg. 33063) Part 260 includes provisions (260.20 and 260.22) under which a company can challenge EPA's classification of a waste as a hazardous waste. Part 261 is divided into four subparts. Subpart A (261.1-261.6) defines the terms "solid waste" and "hazardous waste." Subpart B (261.10 and 261.11) establishes the criteria for identifying the characteristics of hazardous waste and for listing wastes as hazardous wastes. Subpart C (261.20-261.24) estab lishes the characteristics of hazardous waste. Subpart D (261.30-261.33, originally proposed as 250.14) contains COLORITE 017091 - /- lists of particular wastes which EPA has found to be hazard ous and was published in "interim final" form. This means that --although these regulations are promulgated for pur poses of the 90-day notification requirement under 3010(a), the six-month effective date under 3010 (b), and the 90day petition deadline under 7006 -- the public will have an additional opportunity to comment on them before they are published as "final final" regulations. Comments on the interim final regulations are due no later than July 16, 1980. Section 261.3 defines the term "hazardous waste" to include: 1) wastes listed in Subpart D*, unless excluded by rule making; 2) a mixture of solid waste and one or more wastes listed in Subpart D, unless excluded by rule making; and 3) a waste which exhibits any of the four characteristics of hazardous wastes identified in Subpart C. They are: * 261.11 contains the three alternative criteria for listing hazardous waste. The first criterion is that the waste possess one or more of the identified characteristics of hazardous wastes. The second criterion covers the list ing of acutely hazardous wastes - those which have been shown to be fatal to humans in low doses or nave been shown in mammalian studies to have an oral LD 50 toxicity of less than 50 mg/kg, an inhalation LC 50 toxicity of less than 2000 mg/kg per cubic meter, or a thermal LC 50 toxicity of less than 200 mg/kg. The third criterion, designed to list toxic wastes, provides that a waste mi's: be listed where it contains any of a number of designated toxic con stituents listed in Appendix VIII to 40 C.F.R. 261 unless EPA concludes that the waste is not capable of posing a substantial present or potential hazard to human health or the environment when improperly managed. COLORITE 017092 ignitability (261.21), corrosivity (261.22), reactivity (261.23), and extraction procedure (EP) toxicity (261.24).* * Rather than merely repeating the regulatory language, copies of the referenced sections are attached. 261.11 (b) provides that EPA may list classes or types of solid wastes as hazardous wastes if it "has rea son to believe that individual wastes, within the class or type of waste, typically or frequently are hazardous under the definition of hazardous wastes" found in RCRA. In finalizing this section, EPA rejected arguments that it was not authorized by the statute to list hazardous wastes on a generic or process stream basis. in the Pre amble, EPA gives 261.11(b) two inconsistent interpreta tions. The first one, which is the one we expect EPA to follow, states that "a class of wastes may be listed aenerically so long as most of the wastes in the class are typi cally or frequently hazardous." (Emphasis added.) The second interpretation states that "EPA may list classes** ** 261.10 sets out the two criteria for identifying the characteristics of hazardous wastes. First, the charac teristic must be capable of being defined in terms of phy sical, chemical, or other properties which cause the waste to meet the definition of hazardous wastes. Second, the properties defining the characteristic must be measurable by standardized and available testing protocols. Because they did not meet the second criterion, EPA refrained from adding organic toxicity, carciogenicity, mutagenicity, tera togenicity, bioaccumulation potential, and phytotoxicity to the set of proposed characteristics and, instead, left it to the listing mechanism to capture wastes exhibitng those properties. COLORITE 017093 -4- of wastes if it :-<aE reason to believe that all wastes within the class or tyr^ee typically or frequently [are] hazardous.1' (Emphasis added-- , Subparc 10 lists as hazardous wastes a number of wastes which ar^e significant to the plastics industry. Included in the i1261.32 list of Hazardous Waste From Epecific Sources are: EPA Hazardous Waste Number K011 Hazardous Waste Bottom stream from the wastewater stripper in the production of acrylonitrile K012 K013 K017 Still bottoms from the final purification of acrylonitrile in the production of acrylonitrile Bottom stream from the acetronitrile column in the production of acrylonitrile Heavy ends {still bottoms) from the puri fication column in the production of epichlorohyarin K019 K0 20 Heavy ends from the distillation of ethylene dichloride in ethylene dichloride production Heavy ends from the distillation of vinyl chloride in vinyl chloride monomer production PVC sludge, batch residues from the batch produc tion of chlorinated polymers, solution residues from the production of chlorinated polymers, and waste PVC from the manufacture of coated fabrics, contained in the proposed lists of hazardous wastes, are not presently listed as ha zardous wastes. However, in SIII.A.5 of the Preamble to 40 C.F.R. 261, entitled Other Listed Wastes, the Agency COLORITE 017094 -5- states that it has deferred final action on four other cate gories of waste streams which EPA had already proposed to list as hazardous wastes. The first category includes wastes which EPA intends to list as hazardous but for which revised background docu ments could not be completed in time for promulgation as part of the May 19 regulation. EPA intends to amend Part 261 by June 15, I960 to add most of the wastes included in the first category of deferred wastes (listed in Appendix A to the Pre amble). The remainder (listed in Appendix B to one Preamble) are to be added by Fall, 1980. Appendix A does not appear to involve wastes associated with the plastics industry. Appendix B (attached) includes many waste streams from processes involving the production of chlorinated hydrocarbons, including: 11. batch residues from the batch production of chlor inated polymers 12. solution residues from the production of chlornated polymers. In addition to classes of wastes, the regulations also list specific wastes as hazardous. Section 261.33 lists cer tain "commercial chemical products" or "manufacturing chemical intermediates" (including off-specifications materials) as either acute hazardous wastes (261.33 (e)) or toxic wastes (261.33(f)). All substances listed in 261.33(e) and (f), and clean-up residues from land or water spills of those sub stances, will be deemed hazardous wastes when they are dis carded or ready to be discarded. Section 261.33(f) includes COLORITE 017095 6- - the following substances: 1) acrylonitrile, 2) 1,2-aichioio- ethane, and 3) vinyl chloride. In addition, the containers used to hold 261.33(e) substances will (with certain exceptions) be deemed hazardous wastes when they are discarded or ready to be discarded. As stated by EPA: Tne phrase "commercial chemical product or manufacturing chemical intermediate..." refers to a chemical substance which is manu factured or formulated for commerical or manu facturing use. It does not refer to a material such as a manufacturing process waste, that contains any of the substances listed in para graph... (f). Where a manufacturing process waste is deemed to be a hazardous waste be cause it contains a substance listed in para graph... (f), such waste will be listed in either 261.31 or 261.32 or will be identi fied as a hazardous waste by the characteris tics set forth in Subpart C of this Part. In other words, this regulation designates the chemicals themselves in pure or undiluted form as hazardous wastes, if discarded. It does not designate all wastes which might contain these chemical constituents as hazardous. Obviously, the intent of the regulation would be frustrated if companies were free to dilute the listed sub stances so as to avoid the need to comply with the regula tions. Accordingly, 261.3 (a) (ii) defines the term "hazard ous waste" to include "a mixture of solid wastes and one or more hazardous wastes listed in Subpart D." Generally, the key is that if, prior to mixing, the starting materials were not a hazardous waste (a solid waste which is ready to be discarded and is listed as hazardous or determined to be hazardous based on the four characteristics -- a) ignit ability, (b) corrosivity, c) reactivity or d) extraction COLORITE 017096