OES On-site Solvent Recovery Systems Can Lower Your Waste Generator Status

Solvent Recycling is the preferred method of handling your hazardous waste. It allows you to keep your expensive solvent, minimizes your waste removal services expenduratures and best of all, it can lower your generator status to keep you from dealing with SQG and LQG paperwork headaches. As quoted from Oregon DEQ's F.A.Q. on Reporting Information (almost all state regulations are identical to Oregon, but please verify with your state's regulations):

Spent material (e.g., used solvent) that is immediately transferred from a process unit to an on-site recycling unit is not required to be counted or included in the monthly waste accumulation generator category determination, if no storage or accumulation of the spent material has occurred prior to the recycling. See DEQ’s Hazardous Waste Policy 2001-PO-006 for more information on counting recycled hazardous waste.

Solvent waste such as paint thinners is often recycled on-site in distillation units, also known as stills. Waste that is managed in these units must be counted if accumulated or stored prior to recycling for purposes of determining your generator status, and reported on the Waste Generation and Management (GM) Forms.

For solvent that is accumulated or stored prior to recycling, use the following guidelines for counting and reporting of this waste stream:

Spent materials are counted only once during the month the material becomes spent; no matter how many times the solvent was reused during that month. All still bottoms removed and makeup solvents added for use are also counted during the calendar month. The monthly waste total for the waste processed through the recycling unit will be the total pounds of these three waste streams:

Total monthly waste = first batch (or maximum capacity of the recycling unit) + still bottoms + makeup solvent
Example: An on-site still recycles 10 gallons of paint thinner at a time. The facility operator runs a batch through the still four times in a month. Throughout the month, two gallons of solvent are lost in the distillation process, and fresh solvent must be added. Each run through the still generates one gallon of still bottoms. Once a month, four gallons of still bottoms are removed.

From this example, two waste streams must be counted and reported as follows:

1. The first stream is the used and make-up paint thinner. Ten gallons (the volume of the first run) plus two gallons (the amount of make-up solvent added) adds up to 12 gallons of waste paint thinner. This waste is counted towards the generator status and reported on a Waste Generation and Management (GM) Form.
2. The second waste stream is the still bottoms. Four gallons of still bottoms were removed for the month and are counted towards the generator status. The still bottoms are reported using a separate GM Form.

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Oregon Environmental's turn-key on-site recyclers, namely the OES-20, OES-30, OES-60, and OES-200 are systems specifically designed to help you lower your status, lower your expenses, and help you meet ever increasing environmental standards.