Michigan Adopts Aerosols as Universal Waste Final Rule, Additional State Updates

AUGUST 17, 2020

Consumer commodities refers to products produced for retail applications made of or containing chemicals categorized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as hazardous. These include items like drain cleaners, perfumes, small arms ammunition, aerosol cans and many other products. While these products may be safely used in households, the materials they contain pose a potential environmental hazard if allowed to be disposed of alongside regular municipal trash.

Therefore, when disposing aerosols, they must be handled responsibly in compliance with state and federal law in a way that reduces their potential environmental impact.

In 2019, the EPA signed a Final Rule adding hazardous waste aerosol cans to the federal universal waste list under the Federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) regulations. The rule allows generators to manage the cans with the less burdensome universal waste requirements.

The following outlines the state-by-state implementation of the Aerosols as Universal Waste Rule, focusing on changes over the past month.

State Updates

Michigan is the latest state to adopt the Final Rule. Additionally, the following states have anticipated rulemaking by Dec. 31, 2020, with public comment period in the second half of 2020:

• Indiana
• Nebraska

The below states have anticipated rulemaking after Dec. 31, 2020, with public comment period in the second half of 2020:

• Arizona
• Idaho
• Delaware
• Missouri
• Mississippi
• Oregon
• West Virginia

These states have anticipated rulemaking by Dec. 31, 2020, with no public comment period yet:

• Georgia
• Illinois

Clean Earth has extensive technical capabilities to handle the processing of many types of consumer commodities including aerosols. We work directly with pharmaceutical and consumer packaged goods companies to reduce lead time in the disposal or recycling of consumer commodities such as product recalls, damaged, mispackaged and off-spec products. We have a custom-built, cutting-edge aerosol recycling plant capable of recycling over 12 million cans per year.

Learn more about our unique ability to process and fully recycle aerosol waste products.