Hazardous waste in Mexico: generator category, registration, storage, logbook and manifests

Under Mexico's General Law for the Prevention and Integral Management of Waste (LGPGIR), waste is hazardous if it is corrosive, reactive, explosive, toxic or flammable, or contains infectious agents that make it hazardous (often summarized by the Spanish acronym CRETIB). Containers, packaging and soil contaminated with it also count when transferred to another site (article 5, section XXXII).

Classification follows NOM-052-SEMARNAT-2005, which contains the lists of hazardous wastes and the procedure for determining whether a waste is hazardous by its characteristics. At an industrial plant these typically include used oils and solvents, rags and filters soaked with them, treatment sludge and chemical containers, among others. Classification should be documented by waste stream and by process.

The LGPGIR sets three categories by the yearly quantity of hazardous waste, in total gross weight:

If your company has several plants in Mexico, it may add up the waste from all of them to determine its category (regulation, article 42). A registered category changes when generation rises or falls for two consecutive years (article 44).

Registration is done on SEMARNAT's online portal (regulation, article 43) by entering:

• Legal name, address, line of business and, where applicable, the legal representative.
• The start date of operations and the location of the site where the waste is generated.
• The classification of the hazardous wastes you expect to generate and the estimated yearly quantity of each.

You attach an official ID or the articles of incorporation (or simply quote your Registro Único de Personas Acreditadas number, if you have one). The system then assigns your registration number and generator category on the spot. Changes to your data or category are also made on the portal (articles 44 and 45).

Article 46 of the regulation lists their handling obligations:

1. 1.Identify and classify the hazardous waste they generate.
2. 2.Handle it separately, without mixing incompatible wastes with each other, or with recyclable waste or with municipal or special-handling waste.
3. 3.Package it in containers suited to its physical state.
4. 4.Label each container with the generator's name, the waste name, its hazard characteristics and the date it entered storage.
5. 5.Store it in an area that meets the regulation's conditions, for no longer than the law allows.
6. 6.Ship it with carriers authorized by SEMARNAT.
7. 7.Manage it under the law, the regulation and the applicable NOMs.
8. 8.File a closure notice when the facility stops operating or generating hazardous waste.

Responsibility doesn't end at handover: the generator must make sure the companies handling its waste hold current SEMARNAT authorizations; if they don't, the generator is liable for damage their handling causes (LGPGIR, article 42).

Six months is the maximum for storing hazardous waste from the time it is generated, and it must be recorded in the logbook; moving the waste to another location doesn't restart the clock. Storing it longer requires an extension from SEMARNAT (LGPGIR, article 56).

The storage area of small and large generators must meet, among others, these conditions (regulation, article 82):

• Be separate from production, services, offices and raw-material or finished-goods storage.
• Have walls, curbs or pits to contain spills; if liquids are stored, sloped floors and trenches leading to pits that hold at least one fifth of what is stored or of the largest container.
• Have aisles for equipment and response teams, fire-suppression systems and emergency equipment suited to what is stored.
• Display visible hazard signage and use labeled containers that account for incompatibility.
• Stack no more than three drums high.

Enclosed storage must also have no drain connections or openings that would let a liquid escape the area, and its walls must be made of non-flammable materials.

Small and large generators keep a logbook (bitácora) recording, for every entry to and exit from temporary storage between January and December (regulation, article 71):

• The waste name and quantity generated.
• Its hazard characteristics.
• The area or process where it was generated.
• The dates it entered and left storage.
• The handling step that follows its exit (recycling, treatment or disposal, for example).
• The service provider's name and authorization number.
• The name of the person technically responsible for the logbook.

Logbooks are kept for five years (article 75).

Every hazardous-waste shipment travels with a manifest (regulation, article 86):

1. 1.The generator gives the carrier the signed original and two copies.
2. 2.The carrier keeps one copy, signs the original and hands it to the receiving facility with the other copy.
3. 3.The receiving facility keeps its copy, signs the original and returns it to the generator immediately.
4. 4.If the original signed by the receiving facility hasn't come back within 60 calendar days of the carrier receiving the waste, the generator must report it to SEMARNAT.

The generator keeps each manifest for five years from its signature, as well as the results of any analysis of its waste (article 75).

• A management plan for their hazardous waste, submitted to SEMARNAT (LGPGIR, article 46; regulation, article 47).
• An annual report through the Cédula de Operación Anual, with the waste's hazard characteristics, the generating area, quantities generated and transferred, carrier and destination details and, if waste was stored on site, the type of storage and the storage period in days. It is filed from March 1 to June 30 (regulation, articles 72 and 73). More in the COA guide.
• Environmental insurance, under the LGEEPA (LGPGIR, article 46).

The LGPGIR (article 112) allows violations to be sanctioned with fines of 20 to 50,000 times the UMA (the law still says days of minimum wage; since 2016 such references are read as UMA, Mexico's daily reference unit), temporary or permanent closure, administrative arrest of up to 36 hours, suspension or revocation of authorizations and an order to remediate contaminated sites. Storing hazardous waste for more than six months without an extension is expressly listed as an infraction (article 106, section VII).

We classify your waste by process, update your registration and generator category, bring logbooks and manifests up to date and check your temporary storage against the regulation, at plants in Tijuana, Mexicali, Ensenada and Tecate. See our hazardous and special-handling waste service or request a quote.