Office of Technology Assessment

Technologies and Management Strategies for Hazardous Waste Control Office of Technology Assessment

This report presents the analyses, findings, and conclusions of OTA's study of the Federal program for the management of nonnuclear industrial hazardous waste --an issue that has now reached national prominence and widespread congressional attention. OTA's findings and conclusions concerning the technical components of the Federal hazardous waste program complement current activities which have focused more on administrative problems and issues. Our work offers a number of opportunities, at this critical time, for examining solutions to national hazardous waste problems. In conducting the study, OTA analyzed a wide range of views --from the technical community, industrial sectors which generate hazardous waste, the waste management industry, the environmental community, State and local officials, Federal agencies, and the lay public. As a result of that effort, OTA identified four policy options --beyond maintaining the current Federal program-- which could form the basis for an immediate and comprehensive approach to protecting human health and the environment from the dangers posed by mismanagement of hazardous waste. One near-term option addresses the means to improve the technical effectiveness of the current regulatory structure. The other near-term option provides a nonregulatory or market approach to achieving a number of desired goals. Both of these options are compatible with the two longer term options, one of which deals with introducing waste and facility classifications into the regulatory structure, and the other which focuses on achieving greater integration of Federal programs, agencies, and statutes concerned with hazardous waste.