Summary: Industrial wastes often contain valuable metals, and are often disposed of in ways that preclude the future recovery of mineral values. While Congress passed the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 to improve the recovery of usable materials from waste, the executive branch has done little to enhance mineral recovery, especially from industrial wastes. GAO reviewed this situation to determine: (1) the extent to which mineral values are recovered from industrial wastestreams; (2) the potential for greater recovery; (3) impediments to further recovery; and (4) actions to be taken by the Federal Government to accelerate and increase mineral recovery.
Identification, evaluation, and promotion of resource recovery programs for all types of waste are required by the Act. However, little has taken place for industrial wastes for the following reasons: the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has received limited funding under the Act, and the appropriated funds have been largely directed toward hazardous waste regulation; information is lacking on the nature, location, and recoverable contents of industrial wastestreams; the Department of Commerce, which has critical responsibilities under the Act, has been unable to obtain funding; the interagency Resource Conservation Committee, established by the Act to evaluate resource recovery strategies, was not effective; agencies involved have conducted little research on recovering minerals from industrial wastes. Recently, EPA has initiated plans for a new interagency committee to coordinate resource recovery objectives. Because EPA is primarily a regulatory agency with its experience lying in environmental protection, GAO believed that EPA should remain the lead agency for resource recovery. However, GAO attributed the lack of progress toward the resource recovery objectives to assigning EPA responsibilities that could be more appropriately pursued elsewhere.
