Waste Minimization: EPA Data Are Severely Flawed
PEMD-91-21
Published: Aug 05, 1991. Publicly Released: Sep 06, 1991.
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Highlights
Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) National Survey of Hazardous Waste Generators (NSHWG) data, focusing on data quality problems.
Recommendations
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Environmental Protection Agency | The Administrator, EPA, should direct the Assistant Administrator for Solid Waste and Emergency Response to amend federal recordkeeping to ensure that the information that EPA requests about hazardous waste minimization will be methodologically sound and readily accessible. |
EPA agreed with the recommendation and has completed action on database changes and data collection activities. EPA has established a revised recordkeeping requirement.
|
| Environmental Protection Agency | The Administrator, EPA, should direct the Assistant Administrator for Solid Waste and Emergency Response to devise waste minimization measures that account for the mix of production processes and for nonproduction activity that generates hazardous waste. |
EPA has revised its measures to reflect the reduction of hazardous waste, adjusted for economic and production increases or decreases.
|
| Environmental Protection Agency | The Administrator, EPA, should direct the Assistant Administrator for Solid Waste and Emergency Response to investigate industry's perception of EPA efforts at measuring waste minimization and initiate changes as appropriate. |
EPA has completed an effort involving the National Advisory Committee on Environmental Policy and Technology and the National Roundtable of State Waste Reduction Programs to make recommendations on EPA efforts to measure hazardous waste reduction. EPA is implementing those recommendations.
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Topics
Data integrityEnvironmental monitoringHazardous substancesManagement information systemsRegulatory agenciesReporting requirementsStatistical dataSurveysWaste managementHazardous wastes