This New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYDEC) policy makes clear the rules and regulations regarding the management of airbag waste. The project covers defective and non-defective airbag management, along with requirements for airbag waste collection facilities.
How was the Project Started?
NYDEC developed the enforcement discretion letter as a direct response to the recall of defective Takata airbags and EPA’s issuance of the Interim Final Rule: Safe Management of Recalled Airbags in November 2018. Given the risks that mismanaged defective airbags could pose to human health, NYDEC believed that providing clear guidance and regulatory relief to the regulated community would ensure that such airbags were removed from affected vehicles quickly and disposed of properly without imposing complex hazardous waste requirements on generators who were otherwise conditionally exempt small quantity generators.
When was the Project Started?
NYDEC approved an enforcement discretion letter on July 5, 2019 to outline the agency’s authorities.
When was the Project Completed, or is it Ongoing?
Ongoing
What are the Results to Date?
To date, NYDEC has received a number of inquiries from hazardous waste generators about the management of waste airbags and advised them of this policy. No airbag collection facilities have notified NYDEC to indicate that they would like to operate in New York under the enforcement discretion.
What are the Resources Needed, including Time, Cost, Etc.?
Resources needed include those for the development of the enforcement discretion letter, notification form, and airbags webpage. NYDEC hazardous waste and solid waste technical staff and legal council needed to be consulted during the development of the enforcement discretion letter to ensure that the operations outlined in the letter satisfied both the hazardous waste and solid waste regulations in New York State. The resources needed for answering questions related to these items has been fairly low and has been handled by hazardous waste technical staff. There were no significant costs incurred for this project outside of paying typical wages to the staff involved.
Other Comments
The most difficult implementation task related to this enforcement discretion letter has been identifying facilities that can accept such wastes for disposal. There are some outlets for these wastes, but in NYDEC’s experience the waste disposal capacity for these types of wastes appears to be fairly limited, and one of the most common questions the regulated community has is where they can legally dispose of defective waste airbags.
