RA 9003: Philippine Ecological Solid Waste Management

Agricultural waste

shall refer to waste generated from planting or

harvesting of crops, trimming or pruning of plants and wastes or

run-off materials from farms or fields.

Bulky wastes"

shall refer to waste materials which cannot be

appropriately placed in separate containers because of either its

bulky size, shape or other physical attributes. These include large

worn-out or broken household, commercial, and industrial items

such as furniture, lamps, bookcases, filing cabinets, and other

similar items.

Buy-back center

shall refer to a recycling center that purchases or

otherwise accepts recyclable materials from the public for the

purpose of recycling such materials.

Collection

shall refer to the act of removing solid waste from the

source or from a communal storage point.

Composting

shall refer to the controlled decomposition of organic

matter by micro-organisms, mainly bacteria and fungi, into a

humus-like product.

Consumer electronics

shall refer to special wastes that include

worn-out, broken, and other discarded items such as radios,

stereos, and TV sets.

Controlled dump

shall refer to a disposal site at which solid waste

is deposited in accordance with the minimum prescribed standards

of site operation.

Disposal

shall refer to the discharge, deposit, dumping, spilling,

leaking or placing of any solid waste into or in any land.

Disposal site

shall refer to a site where solid waste is finally

discharged and deposited.

Ecological solid waste management

shall refer to the systematic

administration of activities which provide for segregation at source,

segregated transportation, storage, transfer, processing, treatment,

and disposal of solid waste and all other waste management

activities which do not harm the environment.

Environmentally acceptable"

shall refer to the quality of being reusable, biodegradable or compostable, recyclable and not toxic or

hazardous to the environment.

Environmentally preferable

shall refer to products or services that

have a lesser or reduced effect on human health and the

environment when compared with competing products or services

that serve the same purpose. This comparison may consider raw

materials acquisition, production, manufacturing, packaging,

distribution, reuse, operation, maintenance or disposal of the

product or service.

Generation

shall refer to the act or process of producing solid

waste.

Generator

shall refer to a person, natural or juridical, who last

uses a material and makes it available for disposal or recycling.

Hazardous waste

shall refer to solid waste or combination of solid

waste which because of its quantity, concentration, or physical,

chemical or infectious characteristics may: cause, or significantly

contribute to an increase in mortality or an increase in serious

irreversible, or incapacitating reversible, illness; or pose a

substantial present or potential hazard to human health or the

environment when improperly treated, stored, transported, or

disposed of, or otherwise managed.

Leachate

shall refer to the liquid produced when waste undergo

decomposition, and when water percolate through solid waste

undergoing decomposition. It is a contaminated liquid that contains

dissolved and suspended materials.

"Life cycle assessment

shall refer to the compilation and evaluation

of the inputs, outputs and the potential environmental impacts of a

product system throughout its life cycle.

Materials recovery facility

shall include solid waste transfer station

or sorting station, drop-off center, a composting facility, and a

recycling facility.

Municipal wastes

shall refer to wastes produced from activities

within local government units which include a combination of

domestic, commercial, institutional and industrial wastes and street

litters.

Non-environmentally acceptable products

shall refer

to products or packaging that are unsafe in production, use, postconsumer use, or that produce or release harmful products.

Open burning

shall refer to the thermal destruction of wastes by

means of direct exposure to fire. Furthermore, this definition shall

apply to traditional small-scale methods of community sanitation

"siga".

Open dump

shall refer to a disposal area wherein the solid wastes

are indiscriminately thrown or disposed of without due planning and

consideration for environmental and health standards.

Opportunity to recycle

shall refer to the act of providing a place

for collecting source-separated recyclable material, located either at

a disposal site or at another location more convenient to the

population being served, and collection at least once a month of

source-separated recyclable material from collection service

customers and to providing a public education and promotion

program that gives notice to each person of the opportunity to

recycle and encourage source separation of recyclable material.

Person(s)

shall refer to any being, natural or juridical, susceptible

of rights and obligations, or of being the subject of legal relations.

Post-consumer material

shall refer only to those materials or

products generated by a business or consumer which have served

their intended end use, and which have been separated or diverted

from solid waste for the purpose of being collected, processed and

used as a raw material in the manufacturing of recycled product,

excluding materials and by-products generated from, and commonly

used within an original manufacturing process, such as mill scrap.

Receptacles

shall refer to individual containers used for the source

separation and the collection of recyclable materials.

Recovered material

shall refer to material and by-products that

have been recovered or diverted from solid waste for the purpose of

being collected, processed and used as a raw material in the

manufacture of a recycled product.

Recyclable material

shall refer to any waste material retrieved

from the waste stream and free from contamination that can still be

converted into suitable beneficial use or for other purposes,

including, but not limited to, newspaper, ferrous scrap metal, nonferrous scrap metal, used oil, corrugated cardboard, aluminum,

glass, office paper, tin cans, plastics and other materials as may be

determined by the Commission.

Recycled material

shall refer to post-consumer material that has

been recycled and returned to the economy.

Recycling

shall refer to the treating of used or waste materials

through a process of making them suitable for beneficial use and for

other purposes, and includes any process by which solid waste

materials are transformed into new products in such a manner that

the original products may lose their identity, and which may be

used as raw materials for the production of other goods or services:

Provided, that the collection, segregation and re-use of previously

used packaging material shall be deemed recycling under the Act.

Resource conservation

shall refer to the reduction of the amount

of solid waste that are generated or the reduction of overall

resource consumption, and utilization of recovered resources.

Resource recovery

shall refer to the collection, extraction or

recovery of recyclable materials from the waste stream for the

purpose of recycling, generating energy or producing a product

suitable for beneficial use: Provided, That, such resource recovery

facilities exclude incineration.

Re-use

shall refer to the process of recovering materials intended

for the same or different purpose without the alteration of physical

and chemical characteristics.

Sanitary landfill

shall refer to a waste disposal site designed,

constructed, operated and maintained in a manner that exerts

engineering control over significant potential environmental impacts

arising from the development and operation of the facility.

Schedule of Compliance

shall refer to an enforceable sequence of

actions or operations to be accomplished within a stipulated time

frame leading to compliance with a limitation, prohibition, or

standard set forth in the Act or any rule or regulation issued

pursuant thereto.

Segregation

shall refer to sorting and segregation of different

materials found in solid waste in order to promote recycling and reuse of resources and to reduce the volume of waste for collection

and disposal.

Segregation at source

shall refer to a solid waste management

practice of separating, at the point of origin, different materials

found in solid waste in order to promote recycling and re-use of

resources and to reduce the volume of waste for collection and

disposal.

Solid waste

shall refer to all discarded household, commercial

waste, non-hazardous institutional, ports / harbour and industrial

waste, street sweepings, construction debris, agriculture waste, and

other non-hazardous/non-toxic solid waste.

Solid waste management

shall refer to the discipline associated

with the control of generation, storage, collection, transfer and

transport, processing, and disposal of solid wastes in a manner that

is in accord with the best principles of public health, economics,

engineering, conservation, aesthetics, and other environmental

considerations, and that is also responsive to public attitudes.

Solid waste management facility

shall refer to any resource

recovery system or component thereof; any system, program, or

facility for resource conservation; any facility for the collection,

source separation, storage, transportation, transfer, processing,

treatment, or disposal of solid waste.

Source reduction

shall refer to the reduction of solid waste before

it enters the solid waste stream by methods such as product design,

materials substitution, materials re-use and packaging restrictions.

Source separation

shall refer to the sorting of solid waste into

some or all of its component parts at the point of generation.

Special wastes

hall refer to household hazardous wastes such as

paints, thinners, household batteries, lead-acid batteries, spray

canisters and the like. These include wastes from residential and

commercial sources that comprise of bulky wastes, consumer

electronics, white goods, yard wastes that are collected separately,

batteries, oil, and tires. These wastes are usually handled

separately from other residential and commercial wastes.

Storage

shall refer to those facilities utilized to receive

solid wastes, temporarily store, separate, convert, or otherwise

process the materials in the solid wastes, or to transfer the solid

wastes directly from smaller to larger vehicles for transport

Waste diversion

shall refer to activities which reduce or eliminate

the amount of solid wastes from waste disposal facilities.

White goods

shall refer to large worn-out or broken household,

commercial, and industrial appliances such as stoves, refrigerators,

dishwashers, and clothes washers and dryers collected separately.

White goods are usually dismantled for the recovery of specific

materials (e.g., copper, aluminum, etc.).

Yard waste

shall refer to wood, small or chipped branches, leaves,

grass clippings, garden debris, vegetables residue that is

recognizable as part of a plant or vegetable and other materials

identified by the Commission.