Educate and Promote 

Glossary of Waste Reduction Terms

Commercial Sector
stores, offices including manufacturing and industry offices, restaurants, warehouses, schools, colleges, universities, hospitals and other non-manufacturing entities, but does not include other manufacturing activities or business, manufacturing or processing activities in residential dwellings.

Commingling
combining a variety of recyclable materials in one container for collection.

Compost
v. to decay; n. humus-like organic product generated from composting.

Composting
use of microbes to break down organic matter into a useful product.

Contamination
process by which something is made impure or unsuitable for further use, e.g., recyclables are considered "contaminated" when they are improperly sorted or not properly rinsed, thus they must be thrown away rather than recycled.

Corrugated
the middle wavy layer of a cardboard box.

Deposit
money paid by consumer to retailer for returnable beverage containers, refunded to consumer when container is returned to store.

Disposable
a product designed to be thrown away after one use.

Disposal
discharging, depositing, injecting, dumping, incinerating, leaking or placing of any waste into or on any land, air or water.

Energy recovery
recovery in which all or part of the solid waste materials are processed to use the heat content, or other forms of energy, of or from the material.

Franchise
includes a franchise, certificate, contract, or license issued by a local government unit authorizing a person to provide solid waste management services.

Garbage
anything considered worthless and thrown away.

Generator
source of production, in this case of waste or recyclable material.

HDPE - high-density polyethylene
plastic resin used to produce milk jugs, two-liter soda bottle bases, and plastic grocery bags.

Hierarchy
a group of people, ideas, objects, etc. arranged in a graded series (high to low, good to bad, etc.).

Incinerate/incineration/incinerator
reducing the volume of solid wastes by use of an enclosed device with controlled flame combustion; the furnace, boiler, kiln, etc., where wastes are burned under controlled conditions.

Landfill
a disposal facility at which solid waste is placed on or in the land.

LDPE - low-density polyethylene
plastic resin used to make cellophane wrap, diaper liners, and some squeeze bottles.

Leachate
liquid that has percolated through solid waste and/or been generated by decomposition of solid waste--contains dissolved, extracted, or suspended materials. May contaminate ground or surface water, and is especially a problem in areas of high rainfall and porous, sandy-gravely soil.

Lifecycle
the useful lifetime of a resource or product from its initial mining or manufacturing, through usable life, salvage or recycling for use in or as a new product.

Material recovery facility (MRF)
facility designed to remove usable products or resources from the waste stream.

Multifamily housing complex
in Oregon, a building consisting of 5 or more units is considered a "commercial" generator for the purposes of waste classification and calculation of the state's waste recovery rates.

Natural resources
a material source of wealth occurring in nature such as timber, fresh water, wildlife, or a mineral deposit.

Nonrenewable
natural materials that, for one reason or another (scarcity, length of time required for formation, rapid depletion rate, etc.) are considered finite and exhaustible.

Organic waste
material that is living or has been living that the user has determined is no longer useful and has "thrown away."

Packaging
the wrappings, container, or sealing of a commodity.

PET - polyethylene terephthalate
a plastic resin used to manufacture plastic soda bottles and other transparent containers that is the most commonly recycled plastic.

PP - polypropylene
a light, highly resistant plastic resin used in packaging, coating, pipes, and tubes.

PS - polystyrene
plastic resin generally referred to as "Styrofoam" that is used in coffee cups, egg cartons, and almost all packaging pellets.

PVC - vinyl/polyvinyl chloride
a plastic resin used to produce pipe.

Raw materials
resources in their naturally occurring unrefined or unprocessed state.

Rebates
a deduction from the amount to be paid or a return of part of an amount given in payment.

Recyclable
any material or group of materials that can be collected and sold for recycling at a net cost, equal to or less than, the cost of collection and disposal of the same material.

Recycling
any process by which solid waste materials are transformed into new products in such a manner that the original products may lose their identity.

Reduce
(also referred to as "waste prevention") to reduce the amount of solid waste generated or resources used, without increasing toxicity, in the design, manufacture, purchase or use of products or packaging. Does not include reuse, recycling, or composting.

Regulatory agency
government agency with the assignment to enforce regulations passed by legislative process.

Renewable resource
a natural resource that can be renewed or regenerated by natural ecological cycles or sound management practices, such as trees and water.

Resources
a supply of something that can be used or drawn from.

Resource Efficiency Program (of the DEQ)
a community-based approach that works with businesses, schools, and governmental facilities to help identify ways to conserve materials (through waste prevention, recycling or composting), water, and energy.

Returnable
a beverage container on which a deposit is paid at the time of purchase for which the deposit is refunded when the container is taken back to the point of purchase.

Reuse
the return of a commodity into the economic stream for use in the same kind of application as before without change in its identity.

Sanitary landfill
a site designated for the burial of wastes in which the waste is spread out, compacted and covered with a layer of dirt. The site is constructed to reduce hazards to public health and safety, and under federal law must include an impermeable lower liner to block the movement of leachate into ground water, a leachate collection system, gravel layers to control methane, and other features.

Solid waste
all useless or discarded putrescible or nonputrescible materials, including but not limited to garbage, rubbish, refuse, ashes, paper and cardboard, sewage sludge, septic tank and cesspool pumpings or other sludge, useless or discarded commercial, industrial, demolition and construction materials; discarded or abandoned vehicles or parts thereof; discarded home and industrial appliances; manure, vegetable or animal solid and semisolid materials, dead animals and infectious waste as defined in ORS 459.386. Solid waste does not include hazardous waste or materials used for fertilizer.

Source separation
sorting recyclable materials into specific types (such as paper, aluminum, steel, and glass) by the person who last uses the materials before collection for recycling.

Source reduction
reducing the amount of waste generated at the source of the waste (the more popular term is "waste prevention").

Stewardship
responsibility for management and use of a resource or place.

Sustainability
the state of withstanding by replacing a resource at a rate equal to or greater than the rate it is being utilized.

Tax credits
monetary incentives provided for taking particular actions in the form of a reduction of required taxes.

Toxic
hazardous materials that are poisonous, harmful, destructive, or deadly.

Toxicity
the degree to which a toxic is poisonous.

Transfer station
a holding facility for garbage where waste is reloaded into large trucks for more cost-efficient transportation to landfills, recycling dealers, and resource recovery sites.

Vermicomposting
process of using worms and their by-products to produce partially decomposed organic waste material for use as a soil additive.

Waste evaluation
the process of assessing the amount and kinds of waste produced in a given time period at a given site.

Waste stream
the "stream" of materials thrown away, including items which could be recycled or burned for energy recovery.

Waste reduction
reducing the amount of waste generated and disposed using strategies such as waste prevention, reuse, recycling, composting or energy recovery.

Wasteshed
the areas of the state of Oregon as defined in ORS 459A.010 and OAR 340-090-0050 (comparable to counties except for the Metro wasteshed, which includes Clackamas, Multnomah, and Washington counties; and the city of Milton-Freewater, which is its own wasteshed).

Waste composition
components of the waste stream by kind of material (paper, plastic, wood, food, etc.).

Waste management
process of dealing with waste.

Waste prevention
to reduce the amount of solid waste generated or resources used, without increasing toxicity, in the design, manufacture, purchase or use of products or packaging. Does not include reuse, recycling, or composting.

[print version]