Department of Defense Management of Hazardous Materials

Abstract

Over the past 17 months we have reported on DODs hazardous materials and hazardous waste programs and made recommendations to improve DOD's efforts to reduce the amount of hazardous waste it generates and disposes of. We recommended that DOD minimize the amount of hazardous materials it purchases; manage its inventories of hazardous materials properly; reuse, recycle, and treat hazardous waste to minimize the amount of waste that has to be disposed of; and dispose of excess hazardous materials and hazardous wastes properly. Our report on DS2 provides a case study of most of these concerns, Effective, less toxic substitutes for DS2 are available and are being used by the Air Force and the Navy but not the Army or the Marine Corps. The Army's storage facilities for DS2 did not comply with regulations, and the Defense Logistics Agency was selling excess DS2 to the public without providing information on its potential danger and the safety precautions that need to be taken when using DS2. We recommended that the Army and the Marine Corps use a substitute for DS2 and that the Defense Logistics Agency not sell DS2 to the general public and restrict sales to recyclers.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jun 28, 1990
Accession Number
AD1169799

Entities

People

  • Norman J. Rabkin

Organizations

  • United States Government Accountability Office

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Human Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Acquisition
  • Air Force
  • Air Force Facilities
  • Army Facilities
  • Case Studies
  • Chemical Warfare
  • Department Of Defense
  • Environment
  • Environmental Protection
  • Governments
  • Hazardous Materials
  • Hazardous Waste
  • Inventory
  • Law
  • Logistics
  • Marine Corps
  • Materials
  • Natural Resources
  • New Mexico
  • Office Personnel
  • Personnel Management
  • Shelf Life
  • United States
  • Weapon Systems

Fields of Study

  • Materials science

Readers

  • Environmental Engineering.
  • Government and Public Administration Law.
  • Military Science