Cite as: 511 U. S. 328 (1994)
Opinion of the Court
and batteries—would have qualified as hazardous waste. The regulation declared, however, that "[h]ousehold waste, including household waste that has been collected, transported, stored, treated, disposed, recovered (e. g., refuse-derived fuel) or reused" is not hazardous waste. Ibid. Moreover, the preamble to the 1980 regulations stated that "residues remaining after treatment (e. g. incineration, thermal treatment) [of household waste] are not subject to regulation as a hazardous waste." 45 Fed. Reg. 33099. By reason of these provisions, an incinerator that burned only household waste would not be considered a Subtitle C TSDF, since it processed only nonhazardous (i. e., household) waste, and it would not be considered a Subtitle C generator of hazardous waste and would be free to dispose of its ash in a Subtitle D landfill.
The 1980 regulations thus provided what is known as a "waste stream" exemption for household waste, ibid., i. e., an exemption covering that category of waste from generation through treatment to final disposal of residues. The regulation did not, however, exempt MWC ash from Subtitle C coverage if the incinerator that produced the ash burned anything in addition to household waste, such as what petitioners' facility burns: nonhazardous industrial waste. Thus, a facility like petitioners' would qualify as a Subtitle C hazardous waste generator if the MWC ash it produced was sufficiently toxic, see 40 CFR §§ 261.3, 261.24 (1993)—though it would still not qualify as a Subtitle C TSDF, since all the waste it took in would be characterized as nonhazardous. (An ash can be hazardous, even though the product from which it is generated is not, because in the new medium the contaminants are more concentrated and more readily leachable, see 40 CFR §§ 261.3, 261.24, and pt. 261, App. II (1993).)
Four years after these regulations were issued, Congress enacted the Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments of 1984, Pub. L. 98-616, 98 Stat. 3221, which added to RCRA
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