[Code of Federal Regulations]
[Title 40, Volume 22]
[Revised as of July 1, 2003]
From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access
[CITE: 40CFR240.101]

[Page 318-319]
 
                   TITLE 40--PROTECTION OF ENVIRONMENT
 
         CHAPTER I--ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY (CONTINUED)
 
PART 240--GUIDELINES FOR THE THERMAL PROCESSING OF SOLID WASTES--Table of 
Contents
 
                      Subpart A--General Provisions
 
Sec. 240.101  Definitions.

    As used in these guidelines:
    (a) Air: Overfire air means air, under control as to quantity and 
direction, introduced above or beyond a fuel bed by induced or forced 
draft. ``Underfire air'' means any forced or induced air, under control 
as to quantity and direction, that is supplied from beneath and which 
passes through the solid wastes fuel bed.
    (b) Bottom ash means the solid material that remains on a hearth or 
falls off the grate after thermal processing is complete.
    (c) Combustibles means materials that can be ignited at a specific 
temperature in the presence of air to release heat energy.
    (d) Design capacity means the weight of solid waste of a specified 
gross calorific value that a thermal processing facility is designed to 
process in 24 hours of continuous operation; usually expressed in tons 
per day.
    (e) Discharge means water-borne pollutants released to a receiving 
stream directly or indirectly or to a sewerage system.
    (f) Emission means gas-borne pollutants released to the atmosphere.
    (g) Facility means all thermal processing equipment, buildings, and 
grounds at a specific site.
    (h) Fly ash means suspended particles, charred paper, dust, soot, 
and other partially oxidized matter carried in the products of 
combustion.
    (i) Free moisture means liquid that will drain freely by gravity 
from solid materials.
    (j) Furnace means the chambers of the combustion train where drying, 
ignition, and combustion of waste material and evolved gases occur.
    (k) Grate siftings means the materials that fall from the solid 
waste fuel bed through the grate openings.
    (l) Gross calorific value means heat liberated when waste is burned 
completely and the products of combustion are cooled to the initial 
temperature of the waste. Usually expressed in British thermal units per 
pound.
    (m) Hazardous waste means any waste or combination of wastes which 
pose a substantial present or potential hazard to human health or living 
organisms because such wastes are nondegradable or persistent in nature 
or because they can be biologically magnified, or because they can be 
lethal, or because they may otherwise cause or tend to cause detrimental 
cumulative effects.
    (n) Incineration means the controlled process which combustible 
solid, liquid, or gaseous wastes are burned and changed into 
noncombustible gases.

[[Page 319]]

    (o) Incinerator means a facility consisting of one or more furnaces 
in which wastes are burned.
    (p) Infectious waste means: (1) Equipment, instruments, utensils, 
and fomites of a disposable nature from the rooms of patients who are 
suspected to have or have been diagnosed as having a communicable 
disease and must, therefore, be isolated as required by public health 
agencies; (2) laboratory wastes such as pathological specimens (e.g., 
all tissues, specimens of blood elements, excreta, and secretions 
obtained from patients or laboratory animals) and disposable fomites 
(any substance that may harbor or transmit pathogenic organisms) 
attendant thereto; (3) surgical operating room pathologic specimens and 
disposable fomites attendant thereto and similar disposable materials 
from outpatient areas and emergency rooms.
    (q) Municipal solid wastes means normally, residential and 
commercial solid wastes generated within a community.
    (r) Open burning means burning of solid wastes in the open, such as 
in an open dump.
    (s) Open dump means a land disposal site at which solid wastes are 
disposed of in a manner that does not protect the environment, are 
susceptible to open burning, and are exposed to the elements, vectors, 
and scavengers.
    (t) Plans means reports and drawings, including a narrative 
operating description, prepared to describe the facility and its 
proposed operation.
    (u) Residue means all the solids that remain after completion of 
thermal processing, including bottom ash, fly ash, and grate siftings.
    (v) Responsible agency means the organizational element that has the 
legal duty to ensure that owners, operators, or users of facilities 
comply with these guidelines.
    (w) Sanitary landfill means a land disposal site employing an 
engineered method of disposing of solid wastes on land in a manner that 
minimizes environmental hazards by spreading the solid wastes in thin 
layers, compacting the solid wastes to the smallest practical volume, 
and applying and compacting cover material at the end of each operating 
day.
    (x) Sludge means the accumulated semiliquid suspension of settled 
solids deposited from wastewaters or other fluids in tanks or basins. It 
does not include solids or dissolved material in domestic sewage or 
other significant pollutants in water resources, such as silt, dissolved 
or suspended solids in industrial wastewater effluents, dissolved 
materials in irrigation return flows or other common water pollutants.
    (y) Solid wastes means garbage, refuse, sludges, and other discarded 
solid materials resulting from industrial and commercial operations and 
from community activities. It does not include solids or dissolved 
material in domestic sewage or other significant pollutants in water 
resources, such as silt, dissolved or suspended solids in industrial 
wastewater effluents, dissolved materials in irrigation return flows or 
other common water pollutants.
    (z) Special wastes means nonhazardous solid wastes requiring 
handling other than that normally used for municipal solid waste.
    (aa) Thermal processing means processing of waste material by means 
of heat.
    (bb) Vector means a carrier, usually an arthropod, that is capable 
of transmitting a pathogen from one organism to another.