40 C.F.R. § 61.141

Current through February 29, 2024
Section 61.141 - Definitions

All terms that are used in this subpart and are not defined below are given the same meaning as in the Act and in subpart A of this part.

Active waste disposal site means any disposal site other than an inactive site.

Adequately wet means sufficiently mix or penetrate with liquid to prevent the release of particulates. If visible emissions are observed coming from asbestos-containing material, then that material has not been adequately wetted. However, the absence of visible emissions is not sufficient evidence of being adequately wet.

Asbestos means the asbestiform varieties of serpentinite (chrysotile), riebeckite (crocidolite), cummingtonite-grunerite, anthophyllite, and actinolite-tremolite.

Asbestos-containing waste materials means mill tailings or any waste that contains commercial asbestos and is generated by a source subject to the provisions of this subpart. This term includes filters from control devices, friable asbestos waste material, and bags or other similar packaging contaminated with commercial asbestos. As applied to demolition and renovation operations, this term also includes regulated asbestos-containing material waste and materials contaminated with asbestos including disposable equipment and clothing.

Asbestos mill means any facility engaged in converting, or in any intermediate step in converting, asbestos ore into commercial asbestos. Outside storage of asbestos material is not considered a part of the asbestos mill.

Asbestos tailings means any solid waste that contains asbestos and is a product of asbestos mining or milling operations.

Asbestos waste from control devices means any waste material that contains asbestos and is collected by a pollution control device.

Category I nonfriable asbestos-containing material (ACM) means asbestos-containing packings, gaskets, resilient floor covering, and asphalt roofing products containing more than 1 percent asbestos as determined using the method specified in appendix E, subpart E, 40 CFR part 763, section 1 , Polarized Light Microscopy.

Category II nonfriable ACM means any material, excluding Category I nonfriable ACM, containing more than 1 percent asbestos as determined using the methods specified in appendix E, subpart E, 40 CFR part 763, section 1 , Polarized Light Microscopy that, when dry, cannot be crumbled, pulverized, or reduced to powder by hand pressure.

Commercial asbestos means any material containing asbestos that is extracted from ore and has value because of its asbestos content.

Cutting means to penetrate with a sharp-edged instrument and includes sawing, but does not include shearing, slicing, or punching.

Demolition means the wrecking or taking out of any load-supporting structural member of a facility together with any related handling operations or the intentional burning of any facility.

Emergency renovation operation means a renovation operation that was not planned but results from a sudden, unexpected event that, if not immediately attended to, presents a safety or public health hazard, is necessary to protect equipment from damage, or is necessary to avoid imposing an unreasonable financial burden. This term includes operations necessitated by nonroutine failures of equipment.

Fabricating means any processing (e.g., cutting, sawing, drilling) of a manufactured product that contains commercial asbestos, with the exception of processing at temporary sites (field fabricating) for the construction or restoration of facilities. In the case of friction products, fabricating includes bonding, debonding, grinding, sawing, drilling, or other similar operations performed as part of fabricating.

Facility means any institutional, commercial, public, industrial, or residential structure, installation, or building (including any structure, installation, or building containing condominiums or individual dwelling units operated as a residential cooperative, but excluding residential buildings having four or fewer dwelling units); any ship; and any active or inactive waste disposal site. For purposes of this definition, any building, structure, or installation that contains a loft used as a dwelling is not considered a residential structure, installation, or building. Any structure, installation or building that was previously subject to this subpart is not excluded, regardless of its current use or function.

Facility component means any part of a facility including equipment.

Friable asbestos material means any material containing more than 1 percent asbestos as determined using the method specified in appendix E, subpart E, 40 CFR part 763, section 1 , Polarized Light Microscopy, that, when dry, can be crumbled, pulverized, or reduced to powder by hand pressure. If the asbestos content is less than 10 percent as determined by a method other than point counting by polarized light microscopy (PLM), verify the asbestos content by point counting using PLM.

Fugitive source means any source of emissions not controlled by an air pollution control device.

Glove bag means a sealed compartment with attached inner gloves used for the handling of asbestos-containing materials. Properly installed and used, glove bags provide a small work area enclosure typically used for small-scale asbestos stripping operations. Information on glove-bag installation, equipment and supplies, and work practices is contained in the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA's) final rule on occupational exposure to asbestos (appendix G to 29 CFR 1926.58 ).

Grinding means to reduce to powder or small fragments and includes mechanical chipping or drilling.

In poor condition means the binding of the material is losing its integrity as indicated by peeling, cracking, or crumbling of the material.

Inactive waste disposal site means any disposal site or portion of it where additional asbestos-containing waste material has not been deposited within the past year.

Installation means any building or structure or any group of buildings or structures at a single demolition or renovation site that are under the control of the same owner or operator (or owner or operator under common control).

Leak-tight means that solids or liquids cannot escape or spill out. It also means dust-tight.

Malfunction means any sudden and unavoidable failure of air pollution control equipment or process equipment or of a process to operate in a normal or usual manner so that emissions of asbestos are increased. Failures of equipment shall not be considered malfunctions if they are caused in any way by poor maintenance, careless operation, or any other preventable upset conditions, equipment breakdown, or process failure.

Manufacturing means the combining of commercial asbestos-or, in the case of woven friction products, the combining of textiles containing commercial asbestos-with any other material(s), including commercial asbestos, and the processing of this combination into a product. Chlorine production is considered a part of manufacturing.

Natural barrier means a natural object that effectively precludes or deters access. Natural barriers include physical obstacles such as cliffs, lakes or other large bodies of water, deep and wide ravines, and mountains. Remoteness by itself is not a natural barrier.

Nonfriable asbestos-containing material means any material containing more than 1 percent asbestos as determined using the method specified in appendix E, subpart E, 40 CFR part 763, section 1 , Polarized Light Microscopy, that, when dry, cannot be crumbled, pulverized, or reduced to powder by hand pressure.

Nonscheduled renovation operation means a renovation operation necessitated by the routine failure of equipment, which is expected to occur within a given period based on past operating experience, but for which an exact date cannot be predicted.

Outside air means the air outside buildings and structures, including, but not limited to, the air under a bridge or in an open air ferry dock.

Owner or operator of a demolition or renovation activity means any person who owns, leases, operates, controls, or supervises the facility being demolished or renovated or any person who owns, leases, operates, controls, or supervises the demolition or renovation operation, or both.

Particulate asbestos material means finely divided particles of asbestos or material containing asbestos.

Planned renovation operations means a renovation operation, or a number of such operations, in which some RACM will be removed or stripped within a given period of time and that can be predicted. Individual nonscheduled operations are included if a number of such operations can be predicted to occur during a given period of time based on operating experience.

Regulated asbestos-containing material (RACM) means

(a) Friable asbestos material,
(b) Category I nonfriable ACM that has become friable,
(c) Category I nonfriable ACM that will be or has been subjected to sanding, grinding, cutting, or abrading, or
(d) Category II nonfriable ACM that has a high probability of becoming or has become crumbled, pulverized, or reduced to powder by the forces expected to act on the material in the course of demolition or renovation operations regulated by this subpart.

Remove means to take out RACM or facility components that contain or are covered with RACM from any facility.

Renovation means altering a facility or one or more facility components in any way, including the stripping or removal of RACM from a facility component. Operations in which load-supporting structural members are wrecked or taken out are demolitions.

Resilient floor covering means asbestos-containing floor tile, including asphalt and vinyl floor tile, and sheet vinyl floor covering containing more than 1 percent asbestos as determined using polarized light microscopy according to the method specified in appendix E, subpart E, 40 CFR part 763, section 1 , Polarized Light Microscopy.

Roadways means surfaces on which vehicles travel. This term includes public and private highways, roads, streets, parking areas, and driveways.

Strip means to take off RACM from any part of a facility or facility components.

Structural member means any load-supporting member of a facility, such as beams and load supporting walls; or any nonload-supporting member, such as ceilings and nonload-supporting walls.

Visible emissions means any emissions, which are visually detectable without the aid of instruments, coming from RACM or asbestos-containing waste material, or from any asbestos milling, manufacturing, or fabricating operation. This does not include condensed, uncombined water vapor.

Waste generator means any owner or operator of a source covered by this subpart whose act or process produces asbestos-containing waste material.

Waste shipment record means the shipping document, required to be originated and signed by the waste generator, used to track and substantiate the disposition of asbestos-containing waste material.

Working day means Monday through Friday and includes holidays that fall on any of the days Monday through Friday.

40 C.F.R. §61.141

49 FR 13661, Apr. 5, 1984; 49 FR 25453, June 21, 1984, as amended by 55 FR 48414, Nov. 20, 1990; 56 FR 1669, Jan. 16, 1991; 60 FR 31920, June 19, 1995