Alberta's user guide for waste managers

The Alberta Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act (EPEA) establishes a broad framework to manage waste including hazardous waste and hazardous recyclables through the Waste Control Regulation, a transportation tracking system, and an approval process for storage, treatment and disposal facilities.

The main objective of this Guide is to explain the Waste Control Regulation, and Alberta's hazardous waste management program. During the public consultation process used to develop the Waste Control Regulation, it became obvious that the regulated community would rather face a stringent regulation than a "fuzzy" one. We want everyone to know exactly what the rules are.

This guide attempts to minimize the need for costly, analytical tests in waste classification. Extensive lists of hazardous and non-hazardous wastes are provided, in order to eliminate the need for laboratory analysis of these wastes. Also, generators are encouraged to use any available knowledge of their waste to reduce the amount of analysis required in classification. This Guide holds generators responsible for classifying their own waste and for determining if the waste is prohibited from landfilling.