United States Environmental Protection Agency            
Solid Waste and Emergency Response
Office of Solid Waste, OSW (Note:  Office of Solid Waste, OSW, was renamed Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery, ORCR, on January 18, 2009) (5305W)
November 1998
                                               
EPA530-F-98-032


Environmental Fact Sheet: No Hazardous Waste Listing
Determined for 14 solvents


Background
   
   Section 3001 of the Resources Conservation and Recovery
Act required the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
to identify and list those wastes that must be managed as
hazardous waste under Subtitle C of RCRA.  In 1980, EPA
listed certain chemicals as hazardous waste spent solvents. 
In 1986, new spent solvents listings raised the total number
of listings to 30.  Many of these solvents were widely used
in many different industries, and their use had resulted in
environmental damage at many sites.  Although the Agency
listed these solvents as hazardous, other solvents
potentially hazardous to human health and the environment
were not examined.  As a result of a consent decree issues
in June 1991, EPA agreed to make hazardous waste listings
determination on wastes generated from 14 additional
chemicals used as solvents.


Action
  
   EPA is finalizing a proposal not to amend the regulations
for hazardous waste management under RCRA for wastes
generated during the used of certain organic solvents.  The
Agency will not list, as hazardous spent solvents, those
wastes that are generated from the use of any of the
following 14 chemicals which EPA found are sometimes used as
solvents: acetonitrile, benzyl chloride, cuemene,
cyclohexanol, 1,4-dichlorobenzene, epichlorohydrin, ethylene
dibromide, 2-ethoxyethanol acetate, furfural, isophorone,
2-methoxyethanol, 2-methoxyethanol acetate, methyl chloride,
and phenol.

   Based on current management practices and low levels of
exposure, EPA has determined that those solvent wastes not
already managed as hazardous pose little or no risk to human
health or the environment.  Only a few of these chemicals
are widely used as solvents, and most have either no
significant solvent use or only very specialized solvent 
use.  The proposal is not a determination that these
chemicals are nontoxic.  The vast majority of the
nonwastewaters residuals generated from solvent uses are, in
fact, already regulated as hazardous waste because they
exhibit a hazardous waste characteristic.  Rather, this is a
determination that these specific wastes do not need to be
added to the RCRA spent solvent hazardous waste listings.    
  

For More Information
             
  The Federal Register notice and this fact sheet are
available in electronic format on the Internet through the
EPA Public Access Server. The notice is available
http://www.epa.gov/rules, regulations, and legislation. This
fact sheet and other documents related to this rule are
available under "EPA Offices and Regions." Write to the RCRA Information Center
(5305W), US EPA, 401 M Street, SW, Washington, DC 20460.