fills still have potential for surface and ground water pollution and air pollution from gas venting.

Deep well injection of liquid and semi-liquid wastes can pollute ground waters unless great care is taken in site selection and construction and operation of such wells. EPA policy opposes deep well injection unless all other alternatives have been found to be less satisfactory in terms of environmental protection, and unless extensive hydraulic and geologic studies are made to ensure that ground water pollution will be minimized.

Environmental problems associated with ocean dumping have long been recognized. The Congress recently passed legislation to control ocean dumping of wastes (see Section 3).

Incineration, open burning, and detonation all can result in air pollution unless adequate controls are employed. The residues from incineration, and from associated pollution control devices, may require special care in disposal.

Selection of appropriate treatment and disposal methods for a given waste is a complex process. It is simplistic to assume that a treatment and disposal process is applicable to all wastes of a given category. For example, available treatment and disposal processes for three types of heavy metal hazardous wastes are illustrated in Figure 2.2. It can be seen that significant differences exist.

Transfer and adaptation of existing technology to hazardous waste management may be necessary in some cases. Some hazardous waste streams (e.g., those containing arsenites and arsenates of lead, sodium, zinc and potassium, and arsenic trioxide) cannot be treated or disposed of adequately with existing technology.41 Secured storage is available until the appropriate treatment/disposal technology is developed.

Synopses of treatment and disposal processes are given in Appendix D.

Public Use of Existing Technology. The Atomic Energy Commission and the Department of Defense presently utilize almost all the processes identified in Table 2.3 for management of hazardous wastes. High level radioactive treatment and storage sites operated by AEC are located at Hanford, Washington; Savannah River, South Carolina; and the National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho. Similar DOD operated non-radioactive hazardous waste treatment, storage and disposal sites are located at a great number of arsenals, depots, and ammunition plants throughout the country. Private Use of Existing Technology. Some large manufacturers, notably in the chemical industry, have established in-house hazardous waste processing facilities which utilize some of the treatment and disposal processes listed in Table 2.3. EPA-held data on such

in-house operations are sparse. Based on available ocean and land disposal data it is estimated, however, that only a small percentage of the hazardous wastes generated by industry receive treatment and are disposed of at in-house facilities.

The Hazardous Waste Processing Industry. In recognition of this situation several private companies have built facilities to treat, dispose, and recycle many hazardous wastes. These companies sell waste processing services to industries in their area, generally within a 500 mile (805 kilometer) radius. However, largely because of lack of demand for services, these regional waste processing plants still are few in number (about ten nationwide) and operate at about 25 percent of available capacity.

The total processing capacity of all facilities is approximately 2.5 million tons (2.3 million metric tons) per year. Operating at full capacity, these private processing firms presently could handle about 25 percent of the total nationwide non-radioactive hazardous wastes. None of these facilities provide a complete range of treatment and disposal processes capable of handling all types of hazardous wastes. Table 2.4 presents a summary of information available on these firms.

As stated earlier, nuclear weapons production facilities, commercial nuclear power reactors and private sources generate a substantial quantity of high- and low-level radioactive wastes. Highlevel wastes are controlled by the AEC. Management of low-level wastes by private companies at AEC or cooperative State sites is a highly specialized business with limited markets. As a result there are only two companies engaged in handling and disposing of lowlevel radioactive wastes. The quantities of radioactive wastes are expected to increase exponentially starting around 1980, and as a result the number of nuclear waste disposal companies should also increase.

Economic Incentives

The costs associated with proper hazardous waste treatment and disposal are fixed capital-intensive and vary widely, depending on the particular treatment process that is required. Table 2.5 presents typical capital and operating costs for a number of selected processes that are applicable to medium-size regional industrial waste treatment and disposal facilities. These examples illustrate that environmentally adequate technology is expensive. Moreover, to arrive at the actual costs associated with proper treatment of hazardous wastes, a combination of several treatment processes is usually required.

*This table does not consider very small firms with limited facilities (e.g., those plants that consist solely of an incinerator).

1. Capital costs include land, buildings, and complete processing and auxiliary facilities.

2. Operating costs include neutralization chemicals, labor, utilities, maintenance, amortization charges (7 percent interest), insurance, taxes, and administrative expenses.

3. Data corresponds to a typical medium size treatment and disposal facility capable of processing approximately 150 thousand tons (136 thousand metric tons) per year or 600 tons (545 metric tons) per day. Source: EPA Contract No. 68-01-0762

The comparative economics of proper hazardous waste management versus presently used environmentally inadequate practices, such as disposal in dumps or in the ocean, are illustrated in Figure 2.3. This figure also depicts the economies of scale that can be attained by use of large waste processing facilities. The cost data used in support of this figure were based on typical treatment and disposal facilities capable of handling aqueous toxic wastes.

Figure 2.3 indicates that adequate treatment and disposal of hazardous wastes costs 10 to 40 times more than the environmentally offensive alternatives. With these kinds of economic differen