Glossary: Farm and Home Waste Management

These terms may help you make more accurate assessments when completing the Farm and Home Waste Management Fact/Worksheet. They may also help clarify some of the terms used.

Acutely hazardous waste: Those wastes designated by EPA as extremely hazardous because of their greater threat to human health and the environment.

Approved landfill: A waste disposal site specifically designed to protect ground water that meets current state standards.

Conditionally exempt small quantity generator: A hazardous waste generator who generates less than 220 lbs. of hazardous waste per month and less than 2.2 lbs. of acutely hazardous waste, and never accumulates or stores more than 2,200 lbs. of hazardous waste.

Dump: A local or on-farm solid waste disposal area that does not meet regulations, is not covered, is not designed to prevent leaching, and offers little ground water protection.

Hazardous waste: Any solid waste with certain properties that could pose dangers to human health or the environment (such as spent solvents, ink sludges, or cyanide wastes). This term is federal in origin, and covers all wastes the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers hazardous.

Household hazardous waste collection program: A special program in which a community collects waste for reuse, recycling, or shipment to disposal in a specially constructed hazardous waste landfill or destruction in an approved incinerator.

Incinerator: A combustion device specifically engineered to burn solid waste. Incinerators should be approved by the appropriate authority.

On-farm disposal: Any method of burning, dumping, or land spreading of wastes on the farm. Also includes use of the septic system for disposal. These are not recommended practices for disposing of hazardous waste.

Recycling: Reusing or reclaiming a waste material.

Solid waste: Any discarded material (solid, liquid or gas) that has been abandoned, is naturally waste-like, is stockpiled before recycling, or is used in a manner constituting disposal (such as application of oil for dust control).