Five Good Reasons Why You Should Audit Your Waste/Recycling Facility Vendors

Reason#1 - Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) Liability

In 1976 the United States Congress passed the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) which provided for “cradle to grave” management of hazardous waste. The law established that it is the generators responsibility to ensure that their hazardous waste is being properly manifested, transported, and disposed/treated at a legally permitted waste facility. But further, RCRA assigns strict liability to the generator of a hazardous waste regarding the proper treatment/disposal of that waste. That means that a generator could be held financially liable for any mismanagement of a waste regardless of their involvement or even knowledge of that mismanagement. Thus, it is important for generators of hazardous waste to ensure their waste is being properly tracked via the manifest system, it is going to a permitted facility, and it is being properly managed and not improperly impacting the environment.

Reason #2 – Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) Liability

While RCRA addressed active waste management facilities, it did not properly address historic and closed waste disposal facilities. Thus, after a number of these disposal sites (such as Love Canal) became national news, Congress passed the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), also known as Superfund. Under CERCLA, if a waste management facility ceases operations and can’t pay to clean-up environmental impacts associated with that Facility (even if the impacts are the result of neighboring sites), any party that sent “hazardous substances” to that Facility (known as a potentially responsible party) can be financial liable for that clean-up. Note that the term used is “hazardous substances”, which includes an extremely broad list of constituents beyond just hazardous wastes. In fact, hazardous substances can be found in just about every industrial waste stream. Furthermore, the strict and joint and several liability for generators under CERCLA is extremely far-reaching. Strict liability means the generator can be held financially responsible for a clean-up regardless of their involvement or knowledge of the events that caused the contamination; and joint and several liability means that a generator can bear the entire cost of the clean-up even if they were one of many parties that sent waste to the facility and/or they only sent a small amount of waste. While it is impossible to predict whether any specific facility will become a Superfund Site, conducting audits of waste/recycling facilities can allow waste generators to make informed decisions regarding the risks associated with their existing and prospective vendors. Furthermore, if waste facilities are subject to regular customer audits it may additionally incentivize them to operate in a more responsible manner than they normally would, and thus minimize their chances of mismanagement. 

Reason #3 – Brand Name Protection

For many companies, the most important asset they maintain is their brand name. Having that brand name associated with an environmental incident can have wide-reaching negative impacts on a company. Due to its potential in causing such environmental incidents, the waste generated by companies is a potential liability to that brand name. The direct financial cost of cleaning up a drum of waste that was dumped into a creek may pale in comparison to the indirect costs associated with the bad press from that drum having the company logo on it or being reported to have come from that company. In addition, with the growing scrutiny regarding responsible management of e-waste, ensuring your waste is not being “dumped” in developing countries is becoming even more urgent. One of the ways to reduce (but not eliminate) this risk is to perform due diligence on your waste management vendors so that you can make informed decisions regarding their environmental stewardship.

Reason #4 – Being a Responsible Corporate Citizen

Today, many companies take great pride in their environmental stewardship and sustainability programs. A quick survey of the home pages of Fortune 500 companies demonstrates that responsible environmental programs are a high priority in today’s corporate culture. This is further supported by the impressively large membership of CHWMEG Inc., a non-profit consortium of industrial companies wanting to “efficiently managing the waste management aspects of their environmental stewardship programs.” An obvious tenet of any environmental stewardship program is the safe and responsible management of industrial waste. And since most companies utilize third-parties to manage this waste, determining if these waste facilities maintain and uphold the high environmental and health and safety standards they have established for themselves is important to their overall program.

Reason #5 - It is a Key Component of an Environmental Management System

Due to either customer demands or environmental stewardship programs, many companies are implementing environmental management systems (EMS) such as ISO 14001 and R2. A component of the ISO 14001 system (and other EMS’) is an evaluation of impacts related to waste generation. In order to assess these impacts (and minimize them when possible), the EMS should include provisions for the auditing of all downstream waste vendors .