Tools and Resources for Material and Waste Management for Disasters
Numerous resources exist to help communities plan for material and waste management for all disasters.
On this page:
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Resources
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Resource
- Federal Emergency Management Agency Resources
- U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Resource
- U.S. Department of Agriculture Resources
- U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Resource
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Resources
- All-Hazards Waste Management Planning Tool — assists emergency managers and planners in creating or updating comprehensive, pre-incident plans for managing materials and wastes generated from human-made and natural disasters. The new features of this tool include improved estimation of waste volumes based on specific information about the structures in impacted areas, updated and more detailed information on waste management facilities, the ability to add information on transportation options, and integration with other EPA disaster debris systems. View the recording of a webinar about this updated tool.
- Disaster Debris Recovery Tool — contains an interactive map that provides information and locations of over 20,000 facilities capable of managing different materials and wastes that may be found in disaster debris.
- Resiliency and Natural Disaster Debris Workshop Final Summary Report — provides a summary of themes and potential actions that emerged from the virtual Workshop conversations held in the spring and summer of 2021 to advance resiliency in planning for and managing natural disaster debris.
- Planning for Natural Disaster Debris Guidance — helps communities (e.g., city, county, state, Tribal) in planning for natural disaster debris before a disaster occurs to increase community preparedness and resiliency.
- Creating Disaster-Resilient Buildings to Minimize Disaster Debris (pdf)(2024)(5 MB) — provides practical actions for communities on planning, designing, improving, and adapting new and existing buildings to withstand natural disasters to minimize disaster debris while conserving resources, decreasing waste, and reducing health, social, environmental, and economic impacts.
- Decision Support Tools for Incident Response webpage — provides links and information on tools that are available to assist with many waste management decisions in the planning, mitigation, response, and recovery phases of an incident.
- Pre-Incident All-Hazards Waste Management Plan Guidelines: Four-Step Waste Management Planning Process — aids emergency planners and managers in the public and private sectors with the four-step waste management planning process for disasters.
- All-Hazards Waste Management Decision Diagram — aids emergency planners and managers in the public and private sectors with the waste management decision-making process after a disaster occurs.
- Pre-incident Planning for Waste Management poster and brochure — explain and visualize the steps that emergency planners can take to prepare for incident waste in advance of catastrophic incidents.
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Planning for Polychlorinated Biphenyl-Containing Disaster Debris (pdf)
— provides detailed information on the management of PCB-containing disaster debris in emergency situations that arise from natural disasters.
- Incident Waste Decision Support Tool (I-WASTE DST)— allows users to produce an order of magnitude waste estimate, access the treatment and disposal facility database, navigate through applicable guidance and information, and explore other related guidance information. View the recording of a webinar about this tool.
- All Hazards Wastes Logistics Tool — addresses the need to evaluate considerations related to the resource demands associated with transporting and disposing of large volumes of waste. The tool calculates the cost and time to manage a user-specified quantify of waste and allows users to run routing scenarios with user-defined destinations.
- Waste Storage and Staging Site Selection Tool — is an all-hazards tool that provides a framework for conducting a site selection suitability analysis to identify and rank potential locations for staging and storing waste.
- Waste Estimation Support Tool (WEST) — is a planning tool for estimating the potential volume and radioactivity levels of waste generated by a radiological incident and subsequent decontamination efforts. It allows users to evaluate various decontamination and demolition strategies to examine the impact of those strategies on waste generation.
- Large-Scale Residential Demolition website — assists local governments with requirements and good practices, including planning, reuse, and recycling opportunities and funding and compliance assistance.
- Bio-Response Operational Testing and Evaluation (BOTE) Project — tested and evaluated, at the scale of a moderately sized building, a response to a Bacillus anthracis spore release from initial public health and law enforcement investigation through environmental remediation.
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2012 Wide Area Recovery and Resiliency Program (WARRP) Waste Management Workshop (pdf)
— advanced the planning of federal, state, and local officials in waste management following a chemical, biological, or radiological wide-area incident in the Denver, Colorado urban area. This report provides a summary of the participants, presentations, and discussions during the two-day workshop.
- Carcass Management During Avian Influenza Outbreaks webpage — explains the impact that Avian Influenza has on carcass management, including information on carcass management oversight, possible management options, environmental concerns, and disinfection.
- Carcass Management of Non-Diseased Animals webpage — helps producers and facilities with non-diseased carcass management during significant public health incidents, such as pandemics.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Resource
Federal Emergency Management Agency Resources
- Assistance for Governments and Private Non-Profits After a Disaster.
- Benefit-Cost Analysis.
- National Disaster Recovery Framework.
- National Response Framework.
- National Prevention Framework (PDF) (2016) (466 KB).
- National Protection Framework (PDF) (2016) (561 KB).
- National Mitigation Framework.
- Preliminary Damage Assessments.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Resource
U.S. Department of Agriculture Resources
- Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s Emergency Management website.
- Farm Service Agency’s Disaster Assistance Programs website.
- Food Safety and Inspection Service’s Food Defense and Emergency Response website.
- Natural Resources Conservation Service’s Disaster Recovery website.