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ISRI, as part of the California Metal Recyclers Coalition has filed a complaint against the Department of Toxic Substance Control (DTSC) to prevent the unlawful imposition of “hazardous waste” facility permitting requirements on metal shredding and recycling facilities. The scrap metal recycling industry provides critical recycling services for millions of end-of-life vehicles, household appliances and other forms of scrap metal.

Scrap metal has never been classified as a “hazardous waste” under either federal or California law – and therefore metal recycling facilities have never been considered “hazardous waste” treatment facilities under either federal or state law.

The DTSC’s action threatens to undermine the scrap metal recycling industry in California, by making it infeasible to recycle scrap metals like junk cars, used refrigerators, and the many other thousands of end of life metal products. The “hazardous waste” designation will result in materials accumulating in huge quantities, increasing urban blight, and causing potential threats to health and safety by being abandoned in back alleys, yards, neighborhood streets, vacant lots – and through a geometric increase in “midnight dumping” along roadsides or in empty fields.

ISRI seeks a determination from the Court that the Hazardous Waste Control Law does not authorize DTSC to require “hazardous waste” treatment facility permits for metal processing and recycling operations conducted at California metal shredding facilities. The Complaint also seeks injunctive relief.