ReMA offers Superfund informational reports

Trade group will offer its reports on the environmental track record of recycled materials consumers at a discounted price from February through June 2025.

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The federal Superfund Recycling Equity Act (SREA) provided some relief to recyclers, but obligations remain.
Richard Gunion | Dreamstime.com

The Recycled Materials Association (ReMA), Washington, says it is offering its exclusive Superfund Recycling Equity Act (SREA) reports to members and nonmembers in an “open season” that runs from Feb. 1 to June 30, 2025.

According to the trade group, individual SREA reports will be available for $85 for ReMA members and $400 for nonmembers during the time frame.

ReMA refers to SREA reports as “an important risk management tool and due diligence resource” for business owners and managers.

The reports stem from the SREA legislation, which was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in late 1999. The passage of the act capped a lengthy effort by ReMA (then known as the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, ISRI) to provide limitations on the financial and legal obligations of recycled metals processors and traders who provided feedstock to metals producers whose sites subsequently appeared on the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund list.

That legislation was hailed as a victory for recycling companies who were weary of being treated as inappropriate defendants targeted for their “deep pockets.” In their view, recyclers were being unjustly tapped for financial settlements by EPA lawyers.

Post SREA, several Superfund-related obligations remain, however, with recyclers (and brokers) maintaining a responsibility to “take reasonable care” to determine the environmental compliance status of consuming facilities.

“The burden is on the scrap recycler to inquire as to the status of a consuming mill,” current ReMA President Robin Wiener told Recycling Today for a February 2000 feature article. “They can contact federal, state and local authorities to see if there are any existing compliance orders, and there is also a condition to ask owners about their own compliance record.”

Currently, ReMA recommends ordering SREA reports annually for every consuming facility to which a company sends recycled materials and prior to any transactions with new customers.

Upon the conclusion of the February to June 2025 “open season,” report pricing for ReMA members will increase from $85 to $260 .

The association calls SREA reports an important risk management tool, saying just by ordering such reports a company is demonstrating attention to due diligence.

The reports are assembled using publicly available but “comprehensive” environmental compliance information, says ReMA, compiled from more than 1,200 federal, state and local databases, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, facility questionnaires, and other supporting data.

ReMA says the reports provide business intelligence on customer operations. This can include information that may result in avoiding doing business “with potential bad actors,” yielding a “possible qualification for exemption from Superfund liability.”

The reports can be ordered by visiting a website prepared by ReMA.