ASTM E2365-21 PDF

SIGNIFICANCE AND USE 4.1 This guide may be used for environmental compliance performance assessment in the United States in a wide variety of applications and is not particularly limited to one type of user. The following groups of users may find the guide particularly helpful: 4.1.1 Small businesses or enterprises; 4.1.2 Service industries; 4.1.3 Federal, state or local facilities and regulators, including departments of health and fire departments; 4.1.4 Financial and insurance institutions; 4.1.5 Waste managers, including liquid and solid waste haulers, treatment, recycling, disposal and transfer; 4.1.6 Consultants, auditors, inspectors and compliance assistance personnel; 4.1.7 Educational facilities; 4.1.8 Property, buildings and grounds management, including landscaping; 4.1.9 Non-regulatory government agencies, such as the military; and 4.1.10 Specific industrial sectors such as dry cleaners, printers, photo processors, laboratories, health care, and vehicle fueling, maintenance and delivery. 4.2 This guide is intended as a first step in crafting simplified management goals for assessing compliance with a wide variety of multimedia environmental performance standards. The framework describes a process by which the user may categorize current waste management, air quality, water, and release prevention practices in order to manage the risks associated with noncompliance. The technique classifies common environmental performance standards into tiers based on relative risks to human health, the environment and business operations. The tier classifications found in this guide reflect the general requirements of State, Federal and local compliance and enforcement programs. These authorities generally classify groups of similar environmental performance standards according to the significance of any noncompliance within each group of standards. Note 1: Users in the United States are encouraged to review the EPA’s Audit Policy Program: Frequently Asked... SCOPE 1.1 Overview—This guide is an organized collection of information and series of options for industry, regulators, auditors, consultants and the public, intended to measure compliance with environmental performance standards against established benchmarks. It focuses on compliance with air, water, waste prevention, waste management, and toxic reduction standards for facilities in the United States. While the guide does not recommend a specific course of action, it establishes a tiered framework of essential components, beginning with those standards where a deviation presents the greatest potential public health, environmental, and business risks. In each identified pathway, at each tier or step of analysis, the guide outlines ways to identify compliance options and reduce pollution in iterative steps. The goal in using the guide is to lower environmental, public health and business risks from Tiers 1 and 2 to Tiers 3 and 4, by evaluating the performance standards described in this guide. While this guide provides a simplified framework of explicit steps for users, a qualified professional should conduct detailed, site-specific risk analysis. This guide may act as a starting point for organizations with limited experience in systematic environmental assessment. As facilities develop their specific plan framework, they will find that risk is weighted by more than just a few parameters. For each facility risk is the complex interaction among location, size, history, surrounding community and ecological zones. 1.2 Differences Among Standards—This guide focuses on compliance with environmental performance standards in the United States. As such it includes a unique, risk-based method to analyze specific groups of legal requirements, as well as risk reduction techniques, sometimes called “pollution prevention.” 1.2.1 Use of this guide provides a system to evaluate the relative priority of compliance and pollution preven...