Test Burns

The RCRA regulations require different types of facilities to run test burns for different types of POHCs. The purpose of the test burn is to measure the resulting emissions.

It is impractical to run a test burn for every single constituent in each facility's waste stream. Therefore, owners and operators of the facilities are required to perform test burns of the POHCs that are found in the highest concentration in the hazardous waste. They must also perform test burns on those POHCs that are considered most difficult to burn, under the assumption that the other easier-to-burn constituents will be destroyed in the process. For this reason, the owners and operators of a facility choose which POHCs they will test, based on the following criteria:

• The concentration of the constituent in the facility's waste stream
• The degree of difficulty to burn a particular constituent

To meet the standards for controlling organic emissions during a test burn, a BIF unit must achieve a DRE score of 99.99 percent. This means that for every 10,000 molecules of a POHC that enter the waste feed of a BIF unit, only one molecule of POHCs may be released into the atmosphere.

To learn more about RCRA safety standards visit our RCRA Refresher Online Training web page.