Hazardous Waste Treatment, Storage, Disposal, and Remediation
Units at a TSDF
Permitted facilities use containers, tanks, surface impoundments, waste piles, land treatment units, landfills, and incinerators or boilers. Each unit type carries its own design standards. Landfills need a double liner, leachate collection and removal, and a final cap; closure and post-closure care typically run 30 years, and financial assurance must be secured before the permit is issued.
Land disposal restrictions
LDR require treatment before land disposal to meet universal treatment standards, verified by TCLP analysis. Waste that already meets the standard may go as generated; dilution to comply is prohibited. The restriction follows the waste, not the leachate that forms later.
Thermal treatment
Incinerators must achieve a destruction and removal efficiency (DRE) of 99.99% for principal organic hazardous constituents and 99.9999% for dioxin-bearing waste: DRE% = (Win − Wout) ÷ Win × 100.
Remediation selection
Match technology to contaminant and medium. Soil vapor extraction for volatile compounds in the vadose zone; air sparging for dissolved VOCs in groundwater; pump-and-treat for plume containment, though it recovers DNAPL mass slowly; in-situ chemical oxidation for source-zone destruction; thermal desorption for excavated soils; stabilization and solidification for metals; bioremediation for biodegradable organics; permeable reactive barriers for long plumes; monitored natural attenuation where the plume is stable and receptors are protected.
Traps
- LDR is a pre-disposal requirement, not a leachate treatment requirement.
- DRE measures destruction of the parent compound, not products of incomplete combustion.
- Pump-and-treat is usually containment, not a DNAPL source remedy.
Worked example. An incinerator feed contains 500 kg/day of a principal organic hazardous constituent and the stack emits 0.04 kg/day. DRE = (500 − 0.04) ÷ 500 × 100 = 99.992%, which satisfies the 99.99% standard.