18-Env-B5 Industrial & Hazardous Waste Management · May 2018
Nivaar worked solution (AI-drafted; not reviewed by a licensed engineer)
Reference texts: LaGrega, Buckingham & Evans, Hazardous Waste Management, 2nd ed.; Nemerow & Dasgupta, Industrial and Hazardous Waste Treatment, 2nd ed.; Metcalf & Eddy, Wastewater Engineering: Treatment and Resource Recovery, 5th ed.; Davis & Cornwell, Introduction to Environmental Engineering, 6th ed.; Cooper & Alley, Air Pollution Control: A Design Approach; CCME, Guidelines for the Management of Biomedical Waste in Canada (1992); Ontario Environmental Protection Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. E.19 and O. Reg. 347 (Waste Management – General); Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, 1992 (Canada) and Regulations; Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA), 1999.
Question text not reproduced: the examination questions are © Engineers and Geoscientists BC. Open the official past paper (linked at the top of this page) to read the question, then follow the worked solution below.
Hazardous waste management in Ontario is split across two jurisdictional tiers, and the two activities named in the question — disposal and transportation — sit on different sides of that split. Disposal, generation, storage and treatment are governed provincially under the Ontario Environmental Protection Act (EPA), R.S.O. 1990, c. E.19, and its subordinate Ontario Regulation 347 (Waste Management – General). O. Reg. 347 sets the waste-classification (characteristic and listed) criteria, generator registration, Environmental Compliance Approval requirements for hazardous-waste receiving/treatment/disposal facilities, and the cradle-to-grave manifest tracking administered electronically through the province's Hazardous Waste Information Network (HWIN); the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks (MECP) is the administering authority.
Transportation of hazardous waste, by contrast, is governed federally under the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, 1992 (TDGA) and the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Regulations (TDGR), administered by Transport Canada. TDGR sets the nine UN hazard classes, packaging, labelling and placarding, safety marks, and shipping-document (manifest) requirements that apply uniformly to hazardous-waste shipments moving by road, rail, air or water in every province — Ontario's own O. Reg. 347 incorporates the TDGR shipping-document format by reference for in-province moves rather than duplicating a separate provincial transport code. Where a shipment crosses a provincial or international border, the federal Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 (CEPA) and its Export and Import of Hazardous Waste and Hazardous Recyclable Material Regulations add prior-notice-and-consent and tracking obligations (Canada is also a Party to the Basel Convention on transboundary hazardous-waste movements).
In short: disposal is a provincial matter (Ontario EPA + O. Reg. 347, a permitting/prevention-style regime), while transportation is a federal matter (TDGA/TDGR, with CEPA's import/export regulations layered on for cross-border movements).
