Basically, a centralized waste treatment (CWT) plant is one that adheres to special regulations. These facilities hold general waste treatment permits to accept industrial wastewater from offsite companies, treat the waste, and then release the resulting treated material (effluent) into a surface waterway or a public treatment works. But they go the extra mile to ensure environmentally acceptable treatment of liquid wastes per CWT requirements.
That sounds good, but what does it mean for your business? As you may know, the EPA provides effluent guidelines for particular industries, whether the discharge is released to surface waterways or treatment works. Moreover (and this is critical), the burden of responsibility falls to you to make sure your waste is treated correctly.
Further, the EPA furnishes provisions to the CWT industry itself, which categorize liquid wastes by type and their associated treatment requirements. Each CWT facility is permitted to accept waste from offsite, treat, and discharge materials by type according to that facility’s available treatment technology:
- Subcategory A: Facilities that treat or recover metal from metal-bearing waste, wastewater, or used materials
- Subcategory B: Facilities that treat or recover oil from oily waste, wastewater, or used materials
- Subcategory C: Facilities that treat or recover organics from organic waste, wastewater, or used materials
- Subcategory D: Facilities that treat or recover some combination of metal-bearing, oily or organic waste, wastewater, mixtures, or used materials
Permits are further tailored to each facility depending upon a municipality’s public works or stream/water discharge restrictions. Municipalities also set limits on each waste component (mercury, for example); CWT facilities must treat each waste component – not simply dilute them – to the standards required under each of the four subcategories. Further, CWT plants must provide annual lab analyses to the organization that issued their permit to prove that they are continuing to meet the regulations.
Due to these policies, it’s in your best interest to partner with a CWT provider to ensure regulation compliance. Why? Suppose your waste contains a mixture of copper and oils, but your treatment provider only has technology to treat oily and organic wastes, not metals. The effluent from your waste, then, would have excessive amounts of copper still present, which would be discharged directly into our waterways or public treatment works. And governmental agencies will hold YOU responsible.
So it’s imperative that you do your homework. (See our article on conducting an audit of your waste treatment provider.) Consider these specifics:
- Is this treatment provider a CWT plant?
- If so, does it have the capabilities and processes to treat my type(s) of waste? (And have you correctly identified the materials in your waste? Here’s a link to our new MPS.)
- Has this facility demonstrated to their permitting organization that they can accept and treat my type of waste?
- What types of technology does it use for treatment of my waste?
Take a moment to call a potential CWT provider’s permit issuer. Ask them to check to see what the provider’s permit actually specifies.
Here’s another important point: to make things easier and more efficient for you, select a waste specialist that offers pickup and transportation for a seamless wastewater removal and treatment system. And for your complete peace of mind, make certain your CWT facility of choice adheres to the highest environmental initiatives. When you partner with an experienced CWT provider that meets these requirements, you’ll enjoy all the benefits of consistent, quality service.
At Environmental Remedies, our high level of qualifications, experience, and expertise makes us the perfect choice for your CWT provider. We offer the services you need for superior turn-key wastewater removal, transportation, and treatment. Moreover, when you know that your wastewater issues are handled by a company who’s taking care of compliance details, you’ll then be able to focus completely on running your day-to-day business operations.
For more information on how Environmental Remedies is ready and able to serve as your CWT provider, call us at 800-399-2783 or send an email to [email protected].