Any manufacturer in the state of Georgia must ensure that all waste shipments are accompanied by the proper paperwork, and that includes a waste profile prior to shipment. What does this important piece of paperwork entail, though, and as a manufacturer in Georgia that generates waste streams, why does this profile matter?

Non-hazardous or Hazardous Waste Profile Sheet: What Georgia Manufacturers Should Know

Waste Profile: Does It Matter If the Waste Is Hazardous or Nonhazardous?

The first important thing for every Georgia-based manufacturer to understand is that a profile is necessary whether you've generated hazardous or nonhazardous waste.

Unlike a shipping manifest, which only accompanies shipments of hazardous materials, a profile goes out prior to any shipment of hazardous or non-hazardous materials.

For any treatment storage and disposal facility—known more commonly as a TSD facility—to accept a given shipment, that facility must have received the profile in advance. This alerts the facility to exactly what kind of waste they are potentially agreeing to accept, and it allows them to assess whether they are adequately prepared to handle and treat that waste type.

The profile essentially starts the entire treatment process, and it lets the facility know exactly how they need to process the incoming material.

Who Creates the Hazardous or Non-hazardous Waste Profile?

Whether your generated waste is hazardous or nonhazardous, it's the responsibility of the Georgia manufacturer to create the actual profile. It requires a signature from a qualified and trained representative of the manufacturer to confirm what's in the shipment. The paperwork is then sent to the TSD facility, where it's reviewed to confirm that facility can accept whatever is going to be in that shipment.

Often, the facility requires some form of proof to confirm they are able to accept the shipment. This frequently comes in the form of analytical work or an SDS sheet in order to confirm the content of the given shipment. This helps the receiving facility ensure they are clear to accept the shipment, and it provides insurance to that facility in case there are ever any discrepancies between what was stated on the profile and what was actually shipped.

(The necessity of the SDS sheets and/or analytics depends on the given waste stream.)

Shipping Manifests Depend on the Profiles

Another reason the profile is such a crucial piece of paperwork is because the hazardous waste manifest is created based on the information contained within the profile.

If the manifest is wrong, that can have hugely negative ramifications. For example, if there's an accident during transport of your hazardous material, the first responders need the information contained on the manifest in order to know how to safely and effectively clean up that accident.

The manifest has the number to call the hazmat team, but it also specifies importance characteristics of the waste, such as if it's water reactive, which will tell the team not to use water to put out any potential fires.

For more information about what Georgia manufacturers must know about waste profiles, please feel free to reach out to a representative of MCF Environmental Services, an Atlanta waste management company.

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