# SONOCO HICKORY
> **Administrative - Formal** · FY2022 · — · Final Order With Penalty
## Case
- **Activity ID:** `3603235934`
- **Case Number:** 04-2022-2104
- **Type:** Administrative - Formal
- **Lead:** EPA
- **Outcome:** Final Order With Penalty
- **Penalty assessed:** —
- **Cost recovery:** —
- **Compliance action $:** —
- **Multimedia (multi-env):** —
## Defendants
- SONOCO HICKORY (complaint) (settlement)
## Summary

MAY 19, 2022 - CONSENT AGREEMENT: 

On March 18, 2021, the EPA and the North Carolina Department of Environmental  Quality (NCDEQ) conducted  a joint compliance evaluation inspection (CEI) at the Facility. The EPA's findings of the CEI were documented in a report mailed to the Respondent, dated April 29, 2021.

Respondent was attempting to meet the conditions of the Closed-Loop Recycling Exemption for the equipment used to transfer spent solvents from the points of generation at the printing presses to the 2,000-gallon  tank, for the 2,000-gallon  tank, and for the equipment used to transfer spent solvents from the 2,000-gallon tank to the distillation unit. The EPA determined that Respondent's solvent recycling system was not meeting the conditions for operating under the Closed-Loop Recycling Exemption,  because spent 
solvents were occasionally  removed from the system for shipment off-site as hazardous waste and 
because clean solvent was routinely removed from the system for use on-site. The EPA also reviewed a letter from Respondent's consultant  to Respondent which indicated that the system ceased meeting the conditions for operating under the Closed-Loop Recycling Exemption when Press 15, one of the four flexographic printing lines, was added at the Facility in 2020.

The inspectors noted that for equipment used to transfer spent solvents and inks from the point of generation to the 2,000-gallon tank, Respondent:

a.    had not marked each piece of equipment

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*Source: [EPA ECHO](https://echo.epa.gov/) · AI Analytics · CC0 1.0*