The Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) has announced that it plans to explore future rulemaking on the management of “waste retail products” under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (“RCRA”).  Waste retail products include unsold or returned retail products which may at some point become hazardous waste under current RCRA regulations.  According to the Unified Agenda, “[b]ecause of the wide range of products that can become waste, retailers find it difficult to comply with the RCRA hazardous waste regulations that were designed for manufacturing and other types of industry wastes.”  As a result, EPA has expressed an intent to issue a Notice of Data Availability sometime this month identifying relevant information and data, and soliciting additional information and comments from interested stakeholders and the public. Click here for further information. 

This post was authored by Dawn Miller, an associate in Crowell & Moring’s Washington, D.C. office.  She practices in the firm’s Environment, Energy & Resources Group.