De-regulating CA’s metal-recycling industry

California, longtime world leader in recycling, is currently bogged down by regulations on our metal-recycling facilities. Former CalRecycle department director Mark Leary explains that recycling vehicles and metal consumer items is historically very environmentally safe. However, labeling/regulating metal-recycling facilities as “hazardous waste treatment” facilities—as our DTSC is still pushing—slows down processing, creating supply issues. To receive daily updates of new Opp Now stories, click here.

For more than 50 years, the metal-recycling industry has efficiently processed the overwhelming majority of this scrap metal each year, using a variety of safe and environmentally responsible technologies, including metal shredding, sorting and separation. It is important to note that the processes used to shred and separate scrap metal are purely mechanical and do not involve the use of any chemicals, heat, incineration or any other material or technique that could be considered hazardous, toxic or poisonous.  Over the past two decades, metal-recycling facilities have invested tens of millions of dollars in state-of-the-art environmental upgrades, all designed to minimize the environmental footprint of their facilities and to increase their ability to efficiently process this vast and increasing amount of material.

This mass of metal includes more than 1.5 million cars and other vehicles that have outlived their useful life, and consumer items such as used appliances and other metal-containing items. Under California law, recyclable scrap metal items cannot be disposed of in landfills – and even if this prohibition on disposal did not exist, all the landfills in California combined could not accommodate the huge volume of scrap metal generated in the state. 

But even this critical recycling sector is under a threat from over-regulation that, if sustained, could destroy our in-state metal-recycling infrastructure and eliminate the associated climate-change and other environmental benefits. The metal-recycling industry is already extensively regulated by numerous federal, state, regional and local authorities, including regional water boards, regional air districts, local fire departments and other entities that manage and regulate land use.  

The state Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) is now proposing to designate metal-recycling facilities as “hazardous waste treatment” facilities, requiring that they obtain hazardous waste permits and comply with an extensive set of regulations that apply to hazardous waste. But scrap metal is not a waste, let alone a hazardous waste, and has never been classified as a hazardous waste under either California or federal law. 

This article originally appeared in Fox & Hounds Daily. Read the whole thing here.

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