ISRI Opens SREA Program to Nonmembers for the First Time

The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) announced it has opened its Superfund Recycling Equity Act (SREA) Reasonable Care Compliance Program to nonmembers. The SREA Reasonable Care Compliance Program offers detailed reports on consuming facilities’ environmental compliance records. Doing such due diligence on facilities can assist recyclers with the defense of a superfund liability claim as a way of showing “reasonable care,” according to ISRI.

“Superfund liability can be expensive for recyclers if they have not done their due diligence. The cost could potentially put companies out of business,” said Robin Wiener, president of ISRI, in a statement. “The SREA Reasonable Care Compliance Program provides recyclers with publicly available compliance records on consuming facilities to aid with SREA’s due diligence requirements. ISRI decided to make the compliance program more widely available so the entire industry can access this comprehensive information that is so critical to the SREA liability defense.”

Federal superfund law can hold scrap processors and brokers liable for cleanup costs of consuming facilities’ properties if the owners are bankrupt or otherwise unable to pay for cleanup costs. Under SREA, recyclers can employ a valid defense to a claim for superfund liability if they shipped recyclable materials and conducted “reasonable care” to ensure they did not ship to facilities not in compliance with environmental laws.

What recyclers should know about ISRI’s SREA Reasonable Care Program:

1. Reports should be ordered for every consuming facility to which recyclable materials are being sent and done so annually.

2. The SREA program offers compliance reports on consuming facilities, which include:

3. Recyclers must make their own business decision on whether to ship materials. The reports provide publicly available data with no recommended actions from ISRI.

Valued at more than $1,000 per report, ISRI offers each report for $40 for members and $400 for nonmembers.

In addition to making the program available not nonmembers, ISRI now allows orders to be placed year-round. Previously, there was an open season for ordering in the spring, with full reports being delivered in the fall.

Additional background and ordering details on the SREA Reasonable Care Compliance Program can be found here.