Hazardous Waste, 2001
Contents |
What is hazardous waste and how is it regulated in Ontario?
Wastes are considered hazardous if they are ignitable, corrosive, chemically reactive, toxic, or likely to spread disease. They include waste by-products from industrial processes such as waste acids, solvents, lubricants, paints, steel-making residues, contaminated sludges, PCBs, and oils. Many household products, car batteries and biomedical or pathological wastes are also considered hazardous.
Ontario regulates hazardous wastes under Part V of the Environmental Protection Act (EPA), primarily Ontario Regulation 347, the General Waste Management Regulation. This regulation was amended in October 2000 to change the way wastes are classified as hazardous. It had not been updated significantly since 1985.
In 2000, in order to harmonize O.Reg. 347 with the current U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations, MOE added more types of wastes to the lists of hazardous wastes, and introduced a more rigorous test to see if wastes are likely to leach toxic contaminants. (For a discussion of these regulatory changes for hazardous waste, see Regulatory Improvements for Hazardous Waste Management.)
Under the EPA and O.Reg. 347, wastes classified as “hazardous” or “liquid industrial” are “subject wastes,” which must be registered, tracked if moved off-site, and disposed of in specially licensed sites. All disposal facilities, whether on-site or off-site, require certificates of approval under the EPA and may also require approval under the Environmental Assessment Act (EAA). The requirements for registration, handling and disposal were not changed.
How much hazardous waste is there?
The Ontario Waste Generator Database, which is supposed to document the amount of waste produced in the province, has not been fully kept up to date, according to the Provincial Auditor and others. Because this generator database is unreliable and because only some waste is tracked, it is difficult to estimate the total amount of hazardous waste produced in the province. But it could be between three and four million tonnes per year. The volume of tracked hazardous waste increased by roughly 40 per cent between 1994 and 1998, with most of the increase due to leachate liquid collected from landfills and sent to municipal sewage treatment plants. MOE’s changes to O.Reg. 347 in October 2000 will result in significantly more wastes being considered hazardous. MOE couldn’t quantify the expected increase, but said that when the new toxicity test was introduced in the U.S., the quantity of waste considered hazardous doubled.
The increasing quantities of U.S. hazardous waste entering Ontario pose a real concern. In 1998, about 12 per cent of all hazardous waste tracked in the province was imported from the U.S. The total amount of waste imported from the U.S. increased by roughly 135 per cent between 1994 and 1998, while exports from Ontario to the U.S. rose by 66 per cent. In 1998, about 30 per cent of the imported U.S. waste was sent for recycling and 70 per cent for disposal. About half went to the Safety-Kleen landfill near Sarnia. U.S. waste comprised half the waste received at that landfill by 1998, an increase of over 250 per cent since 1984. Reasons for the increase in U.S. imports are com- monly thought to include:
- Ontario standards for disposal are weaker than the U.S. standards. For example, Ontario allows landfilling of hazardous wastes banned from U.S. landfills since 1994.
- The cost of disposal is lower in Ontario.
- There are different rules for liability. In Ontario, once a waste is accepted by a receiver, the liability for future environmental harm is transferred. In the U.S., it stays with the generator under “extended liability” rules.
Where does the hazardous waste go?
MOE’s system for tracking the movement of hazardous wastes – the Waste Manifest Database – provides limited information. Generators of waste have to fill in and submit forms (manifests) that can be used to track the movement of hazardous wastes from generation to disposal. Because the system was introduced to control illegal dumping of hazardous wastes, MOE tracks only the off-site transfers of wastes, estimated to be about 60 per cent of the total amount of hazardous wastes generated in Ontario. The fate of the other 40 per cent of subject wastes is largely unknown because little reporting is required for on-site disposal. A few large industrial facilities have a landfill or incinerator on-site, and an estimated 32,000 facilities discharge hazardous or liquid industrial wastes directly into municipal sewers, some legally and some illegally. Some leachate collected from land- fills goes directly into municipal sewage treatment plants and is unreported as well.
About 35 per cent of the tracked waste is landfill leachate trucked to municipal sewage treatment plants. For the rest of the hazardous waste sent off-site, disposal options are landfilling, incineration, or export for treatment not available in Ontario. Some wastes are also recycled or reused and some are burned as fuels. Ontario has a few facilities licensed to incinerate PCBs and biomedical or pathological waste. But most of the non-leachate hazardous waste produced in Ontario is disposed of at the Safety-Kleen facility near Sarnia, which has a landfill and an incinerator. Most liquid hazardous industrial waste is incinerated at the Safety-Kleen facility. The incinerator cannot handle solids, sludges, chlorinated organic chemicals or flammable wastes, so these are exported to the U.S. or other provinces to be incinerated in high-tech incinerators or rotary kilns.
Does Ontario have adequate treatment and disposal capacity?
In the early 1980s, the provincial government believed there was a pressing need to establish publicly owned facilities for treatment and disposal of hazardous and liquid industrial waste, and a Crown agency was created to develop and operate an integrated hazardous waste facility. However, the application for the proposed facility was turned down on technical grounds in a 1994 environmental hearing board decision, even though the board agreed that the province had inadequate treatment and disposal capacity for hazardous wastes. In 1995 the provincial government terminated the Crown agency and discontinued planning for hazardous waste treatment and disposal. MOE now relies solely on the private sector to establish facilities according to market demand. To date, the only major private sector disposal facility has been expansion of the Safety-Kleen landfill in 1997.
Several treatment and processing facilities have also been established or proposed. The Safety-Kleen landfill continues to fill more quickly than projected. In December 2000, MOE estimated it had only five years of capacity left. Reports suggest that Safety-Kleen has purchased an additional 1,000 acres of land surrounding the landfill, but as of April 2001, had not yet applied to the ministry for approval of a further expansion. The company has applied for permission to increase the quantity of waste incinerated to respond to the increased demand expected as a result of the changes to O.Reg. 347.
There have been significant concerns raised lately about the environmental impacts of the Safety- Kleen landfill and incinerator. The expansion of the landfill was approved by MOE under the EAA and EPA in 1997 under a new rule that removed the EPA requirement for mandatory public hearings. Since then the public has continued to raise concerns about the landfill’s integrity, especially since the discovery of a leak and a number of fires.
Two EBR applications were received in late 2000 requesting that MOE review the certificates of approval for the Safety-Kleen facility. The ministry did not take any action as a result of the EBR applications, and suggested that it was up to the company to initiate improvements. Furthermore, the ministry appeared to be avoiding public scrutiny or input into its decisions, by not clearly telling the applicants about Safety-Kleen’s current proposals for amendments to its Cs of A. Public confidence in the facility and in MOE’s ability to regulate it are very low. (The ECO’s report on MOE’s response to these requests is found in Safety-Kleen.)
Is further review of MOE’s hazardous waste management policies required?
In 1998 the Canadian Institute for Environmental Law and Policy (CIELAP) submitted an EBR application for review of MOE’s hazardous waste management regime. MOE turned down that application, saying that some of the matters raised were already under review. The ECO reported in the 1998 annual report that MOE did not adequately reply to many of the issues raised.
In late 1999, MOE launched its “six-point action plan” to strengthen Ontario’s regulation of hazardous waste, and a ministry news release described the plan:
- The minister has directed a thorough review taking into account all information, policies and recommendations designed to improve environmental protection, including those in use by the US Environmental Protection Agency. Updating these regulations will provide tighter control of hazardous wastes throughout the province, increased transparency between the US and Ontario rules, and improved environmental protection in Ontario.
In late 1999, CIELAP submitted another EBR application requesting a review of the need for broader reforms to the regulatory system, including changes to the approvals process for hazardous waste sites. They also requested that Ontario adopt U.S. rules – such as land disposal restrictions that ban untreated hazardous wastes from landfills – as interim measures, while the ministry carried out its review. MOE denied the application, but gave the impression that it was still reviewing other issues, saying the ministry is “committed to further reviewing its hazardous waste regulation and further initiatives, including land disposal restrictions, are under consideration.”
In February 2000, MOE proposed further amendments to O.Reg. 347 to strengthen the rules for characterizing wastes as hazardous by adopting the lists and tests in the U.S. rules. The changes, finalized in October 2000, will improve environmental protection, because they will keep more potentially hazardous wastes out of non-hazardous waste landfills. But the proposed amendments did not strengthen Ontario’s rules for handling and disposal of hazardous wastes. Many stakeholders commenting on the proposals advised the ministry that the changes were a positive step, but unless they are accompanied by the tougher U.S. standards for disposal, the large volume of hazardous waste flowing into Ontario from the U.S. would continue unabated.
MOE continued to tell the ECO during 2000 that it was reviewing the need for land disposal restrictions. In November 2000, however, the ministry announced that “the province has now fulfilled its six-point action plan” and in a February 2001 report to the ECO, MOE made it clear there would be no further ongoing review.
ECO Comment
The ECO concludes that there is still a major need for improvements in the policies regarding hazardous waste. The Safety-Kleen landfill remains a magnet for U.S. wastes. Given capacity pressures, lack of alternative disposal options, public concerns and recent environmental problems, the ministry should undertake a more comprehensive review. Many of the issues raised in recent EBR applications remain unaddressed. For example the ministry doesn’t have adequate data about or regulation of the significant amounts of hazardous wastes disposed of on-site, or discharged into sewers.
The ECO believes MOE should address these problems. The ministry should examine why U.S. imports of hazardous waste are rising, and should consider adopting the U.S. rules such as land disposal restrictions and extended liability. The ministry should also put more effort into pollution prevention, to reduce the generation of hazardous wastes in Ontario. Finally, the ministry should be more open and forthcoming about the status of its policy reviews. MOE gave the impression with its six- point action plan that the ministry was going to overhaul its hazardous waste management regime.
Instead, MOE undertook only limited measures and misled applicants and the ECO about the scope of its review. Actions such as these undermine public confidence in the ministry. In order to restore public confidence, MOE should carry out a broader and more transparent review of its overall approach to hazardous waste management. There have been recent developments on some of these issues. See ministry comments on pages 189-190.
| Recommendation 2:
The ECO recommends that MOE carry out a broad and transparent review of its overall approach to hazardous waste management, including an examination of why imports of U.S. hazardous wastes are rising. |
| This is an article from the 2000/01 Annual Report to the Legislature from the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. |
Citing This Article
Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. 2001. "Hazardous Waste." Having Regard, ECO Annual Report, 2000-01. Toronto, ON : Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. 44-48.
