A characteristic waste can be made nonhazardous by:

A characteristic waste can be made nonhazardous by:

• A. diluting with water
• B. removing the hazardous property
• C. mixing with nonhaz waste
• D. disposing of in municipal landfill

Answer: (B)

Characteristic waste is defined by a specific hazardous property it exhibits, such as ignitability, corrosivity, reactivity, or toxicity. To render it nonhazardous, you must remove that hazardous property through treatment, so the waste no longer meets the criteria for being hazardous. Diluting with water doesn’t reliably eliminate the property and is not an accepted way to neutralize the hazard; mixing with nonhazardous waste doesn’t remove the characteristic, and disposal in a municipal landfill doesn’t change the waste’s hazard status. The only effective approach is treatment that removes the hazardous property.

Characteristic waste is defined by a specific hazardous property it exhibits, such as ignitability, corrosivity, reactivity, or toxicity. To render it nonhazardous, you must remove that hazardous property through treatment, so the waste no longer meets the criteria for being hazardous. Diluting with water doesn’t reliably eliminate the property and is not an accepted way to neutralize the hazard; mixing with nonhazardous waste doesn’t remove the characteristic, and disposal in a municipal landfill doesn’t change the waste’s hazard status. The only effective approach is treatment that removes the hazardous property.