Shop Towel Proposal Gains Approval of EPA

Last month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) signed the proposed rule on shop towels, which has now been formally published in the Federal Register for review and comment. In brief, according to the Printers' National Environmental Assistance Center (PNEAC),

EPA's proposed rule addresses both disposable and reusable shop towels. If certain conditions are met, solvent-contaminated reusable towels will be excluded from the complete set of solid waste regulations. If certain conditions are met, solvent-contaminated disposable towels will be excluded from only the hazardous waste regulations.

Comments are due to EPA by February 18; as planned, the printing industry will be submitting comments and meeting with EPA. Already, PNEAC has been holding free Webinars on the subject (recorded sessions are available for on-line playback at www.pneac.org on the Web).

On November 10, the newly appointed EPA administrator, Mike Leavitt, signed a proposed rule that will affect how printers and other businesses manage solvent-contaminated reusable towels and disposable wipes.

As quoted from EPA's announcement, "EPA is proposing to modify its hazardous waste management regulations under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act for certain solvent-contaminated materials, such as reusable shop towels, rags, disposable wipes, and paper towels. Specifically, EPA is proposing: to conditionally exclude from the definition of hazardous waste disposable industrial wipes that are contaminated with hazardous solvents and are going to disposal; and, to conditionally exclude from the definition of solid waste reusable industrial shop towels and rags that are contaminated with hazardous solvents and are sent for laundering or dry cleaning (hereinafter referred to as disposable industrial wipes and reusable industrial wipes, respectively)."

The proposal covers industrial wipes contaminated by various solvents and chemicals.