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48 Waste Management Practices: Municipal, Hazardous, and Industrial
The U.S. Public Health Service and the U.S. Bureau of Mines were responsible for enforcement
of this act. The former agency had the responsibility for regulating Municipal Solid Waste (MSW)
generation and the latter was charged with the supervision of solid wastes generated from mining
and from fossil fuel combustion (e.g., coal ash at an electric generating utility). The primary thrust
of this legislation was on the development of more efficient disposal methods rather than on the pro-
tection of public health and the environment.

3.2.2 THE RESOURCE RECOVERY ACT
The Resource Recovery Act of 1970 (Public Law 95–512) was considered a shift in federal legis-
lation from waste disposal efficiency to efforts to recover energy and materials from solid waste.
The Act authorized grants for demonstrating new resource recovery technologies.
By 1970 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was established by presidential order under
Reorganizational Plan No. 3 of 1970. All solid waste management activities were transferred from
the U.S. Public Health Service to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The Resource
Recovery Act subsequently required annual reports from the U.S. EPA on methods of promoting
recycling and reducing the overall generation of solid waste.

3.2.3 THE RESOURCE CONSERVATION AND RECOVERY ACT
The acts promulgated up to this point did little to establish firm regulations; rather, guidelines were
formulated. The federal government became engaged in a more active regulatory role, manifested in
the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) of 1976, passed by Congress as Public Law
94–580. For the first time, comprehensive federal regulations were established to regulate many cat-
egories of waste. As of this writing, RCRA consists of ten subtitles, and are listed in Table 3.1.

3.2.4 SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT UNDER RCRA

The RCRA solid waste management program, Subtitle D, encourages environmentally sound solid
waste management practices that maximize the reuse of recoverable material and promote resource
recovery. The term “solid waste” as used in Subtitle D is broad and includes waste materials beyond
ordinary MSW, which is typically collected and disposed in municipal solid waste landfills; for
example, hazardous waste generated by conditionally exempt small quantity generators (CESQGs)
(see Chapter 11) are included, as are hazardous wastes that are excluded from the Subtitle C regu-
lations (e.g., household hazardous waste). The solid waste management program also addresses
MSW generated by businesses.

TABLE 3.1
Outline of RCRA Subtitles

Subtitle Provisions
A General Provisions
B Office of Solid Waste; Authorities of the Administrator and Interagency Coordinating Committee
C Hazardous Waste Management
D State or Regional Solid Waste Plans
E Duties of the Secretary of Commerce in Resource and Recovery
F Federal Responsibilities
G Miscellaneous Provisions
H Research, Development, Demonstration, and Information
I Regulation of Underground Storage Tanks
J Standards for the Tracking and Management of Medical Waste