GlossaryThis Glossary defines terminology that is commonly used in integrated solid waste management. The definitions have been prepared specifically for the solid waste management context. Most of the terms in this Glossary may also be used in other contexts, and may have different meanings in those contexts.
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A more detailed Glossary of Terms, including many technical terms, is included in the Strategic Planning Guide For Municipal Waste Management, prepared by ERM Ltd. in 2000 and available from The World Bank.
A B C D E F G H I JKL M N O P Q R S T U V W XYZ
A
Accounting: The collection, processing, reporting, analysing, interpreting and projecting of financial information to aid in decision making.
Accountable: Required to justify decisions and actions, and their consequences.
Aerobic Systems: Living systems or processes that require, or are not destroyed by, the presence of oxygen. (See: anaerobic).
Aerobic Decomposition: Decomposition that takes place in the presence of oxygen.
Affordability: Capacity to pay for solid waste management services.
Agricultural Waste: Farming wastes, erosion and dust from cultivation; carcasses; crop residues, debris and other solid waste generated in agricultural activities.
Anaerobic Systems: Living systems or processes that occur in, or are not destroyed by, the absence of oxygen. (See: aerobic)
Anaerobic Decomposition: Decomposition in the absence of oxygen.
Aquifer: A geological formation, group of formations, or portion of a formation capable of yielding significant quantities of groundwater to springs or wells.
Ash: Inorganic, particulate residue of combustion. Ash is usually polluted by small quantities of organic material resulting from incomplete combustion.
Audit: A systematic check of the efficiency, effectiveness and, as appropriate, the regulatory compliance aspects of a operation.
Autonomy: The authority, responsibility and accountability to take decisions and/or actions
B
Baling: Compacting municipal solid waste or plastic and metal recyclables into blocks (called bales) to reduce volume and facilitate handling.
Bio-accumulation: The retaining and accumulation over time of certain chemical compounds in organic matter such as the tissues of plants and animals used as food sources.
Biodegradable: Capable of being decomposed by microorganisms under natural conditions (aerobic and/or anaerobic). Most organic materials, such as food scraps and paper are biodegradable.
Biogas: Gas formed by digestion or decomposition of organic materials.
Bottom Ash: The non-airborne combustion residue from incinerating solid waste.
Budget: Annual estimate of revenue and expenditure of an organisation.
Build, Own, Operate (BOO): See Concession Contract.
Build, Own, Transfer (BOT): See Concession Contract.
Bulky Waste: Large items of municipal solid waste including but not limited to appliances, furniture, large auto parts, tree stumps etc., which cannot be handled by normal municipal solid waste management methods.
By-laws: Refers to subordinate municipal legislation, applicable and enforceable only within the legal borders or municipality.  C
Capacity Building: Improving and building the technical and managerial skills and resources within an organisation.
Capital cost: I nvestment cost. Includes items such as land, site development, infrastructure, plant and equipment and licence costs.
Cell: A volume within a landfill operationally dedicated to a particular purpose (e.g. filling with waste or composting).
Centralised Composting: System utilising a central facility within a defined area with the purpose of composting the putrescible fraction of solid waste.
Closure: The procedure to be followed and actions to be taken when a disposal site is to be closed.
Co-disposal: The disposal of different types wastes in one area of a landfill.
Collection: The process of picking up discarded materials from residences, businesses, or a collection point, loading them into a vehicle, and transporting them to a waste management facility.
Commercial Waste: All municipal solid waste generated by the services sector.
Commingled Recyclables: Mixed recyclables (e.g. glass and plastic) that are collected, stored or processed together.
Common Good: In relation to solid waste management services, an essential service that everyone has a right to receive.
Community-Based Organisation: Community based interest groups formed by the members of a local community to take charge of their interests or to influence events.
Community Participation: The involvement of the community to address a particular issue.
Communal Collection: A system of collection in which individuals bring their wastes directly to a central point, from where they are collected.
Community Composting: System at a community level within a defined area with purpose of composting putrescible materials.
Compost: The stable, humus-like material that is produced from the controlled decomposition of organic wastes.
Composting: The controlled biological decomposition of organic wastes in the presence of air to form a humus-like material.
Concession Contract: A contract to design, build, and operate (DBO) a facility or system for waste treatment and disposal. Variations include build, own, operate (BOO) when the finance is provided by the private sector company and build, own, transfer (BOT) when the ownership transfers at an agreed data to a public entity.
Construction and Demolition Waste: Solid waste generated from construction or demolition activities, including dredging materials, tree stumps, rubble and debris.
Contaminant: A substance that has an adverse impact on the recyclability of a material, the quality of compost or a negative impact on environmental or natural resources.
Cost-Effective: The quality of minimising cost in pursuit of an objective.
Cost Recovery: The action of securing funds to pay for the recurrent costs of a waste management facility, system or service.
Cover Material: Material used to cover solid wastes after their disposal in order to control entry of precipitation into the wastes, to reduce odours, nuisances, vectors, fires, and landfill gas migration and, following closure, to stimulate vegetation growth.
Criterion: Principle or standard that an alternative (opinion/strategy) is judged by.
Curb-side Collection: Method of collecting discarded materials from where they have been placed on a street adjacent to the place where they have been generated.
D
Decomposition: The breakdown of organic matter by bacteria and fungi.
Depreciation: The decline in value over time of capital investments in facilities and equipment
Design, Build, Operate (DBO) Contract: see Concession Contract
Direct charges: Waste management costs billed to the user of a waste management service. (See: Indirect Charges).
Discount Rate: The extent to which the value of money to be invested in the future is reduced to reflect the equivalent value of that money in the present day.
Disposables: Consumer products, other items, and packaging used once or a few times and discarded.
Disposal: The final placement of solid wastes on, or in, the land.
Diversion Rate: The percentage of waste materials diverted from disposal to productive use.
Domestic Waste: See Household Waste.
Donor Agency: An international or national (bilateral) development agency that administers grant or concessional financing or technical assistance.
Drop-off: Collection method in which generators of recyclable materials bring designated materials to a collection site.
Dump: A site with incomplete or no engineering or management controls that is used for the disposal of solid waste. E
Economic Evaluation: The principal means of determining whether a proposed investment is economically justifiable and for selecting the most economically attractive of project alternatives.
Economic Instrument: A monetary incentive or disincentive to act in a manner supportive of policy objectives.
Economies of Scale: Reductions in the unit cost of a service resulting from increased efficiency associated with larger operations.
Effectiveness: The quality of achieving service objectives.
Efficiency: The quality of delivering a waste management service with a minimum of effort.
Emission: A material which is expelled or released to the environment. Usually applied to gaseous or odorous releases to atmosphere. End-Use
Market: An entity that purchases recyclable materials, compost or other resources/products derived from waste materials.
Energy Recovery: Obtaining energy from solid wastes. Environmental
Impact Assessment: An environmental analysis prepared to determine whether an action (such as a proposed development project) would significantly affect the environment and the mitigation measures to reduce the impacts to acceptable level.
Environmental Monitoring: A continuous or regular periodic check to determine the environmental impacts of a waste management operation to ensure compliance with licence conditions and/or overall environmental performance F
Feasibility Study: Analysis of the practicability of a proposal.
Franchise: A limited monopoly awarded to an organisation private company to deliver a particular MSWM service, in a defined area for a fixed period. Generally the private company provides a performance bond to the municipality and pays a license fee to cover costs of monitoring service provision.
G
Gate Fee: Charge made by a waste management facility operator based on the amount of waste delivered to the facility.
Generation: The act of discarding unwanted materials.
Generation Rate: The amount of solid waste that is generated over a given period of time.
Generator: A person or organisation that discards materials.
Groundwater: Fresh water found beneath the earth's surface, usually in aquifers, and which may supply wells and springs.
H
Haul Distance: The distance over which wastes or cover material must be transported.
Hauler: The organisation that collects and/or transports waste
Hazardous Waste: Waste generated during production or other activities by society that can pose a substantial or potential hazard to human health or the environment when improperly managed. Possesses at least one of four characteristics (ignitability, corrosivity, reactivity or toxicity).
Heavy Metals: Metallic elements such as mercury, chromium, cadmium, arsenic and lead with high atomic weights which can damage living things at low concentrations and tend to accumulate in the food chain.
Household Waste (Domestic Waste, Residential Waste): Waste generated in the home.
I
Incineration: A treatment technology involving controlled burning of solid waste at high temperatures
Indirect Charges: Waste management costs paid for in ways other than by billing the cost to the user of the waste management service; e.g. allocation of taxes to waste management costs.
Industrial Waste: Waste generated by manufacturing industry.
Inert: Lacking the ability to chemically react with other substances.
Infectious Waste: Hazardous waste with infectious characteristics, including contaminated animal waste, human blood and blood products, isolation waste, pathological waste, and discarded sharps (needles, scalpels or broken medical instruments).
Informal Sector: Individuals and enterprises that engage in economic activity that takes place outside the formal norms of economic transactions established by the state and formal business practices but which is not clearly illegal in itself.
Information Management System: A system (usually computer supported) in which data/information is collected, stored, organised, processed, utilised and disseminated. The IMS is used for decision-making, planning, monitoring, problem solving and creation of new knowledge.
Institutional Strengthening: Process designed to enhance the ability of an institution to meet its objectives more effectively, often through a combination of measures including technical assistance, training, improved management structure system and better legislative and regulatory frameworks.
Institutional Waste: Waste generated in institutions, for example in schools, hospitals, prisons, research organisations and other public buildings.
Integrated Solid Waste Management: Systems for managing waste in ways that: (i) seek to reduce the amount of waste requiring disposal through minimising waste generation and reusing, recycling and composting discarded materials using a variety of technologies and methods; (ii) distribute costs and revenues in accordance with user pay and polluter pay principles applied in the context of local ability to pay; and (iii) meet minimum public health and environmental standards
In-Vessel Composting: A composting method in which the compost is continuously and mechanically mixed and aerated in a large, contained area.
J, K, L
Landfill Gas: Gas arising from the decomposition of the organic (putrescible) fraction of MSW in a landfill site; principally methane, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen sulphide. Such gases may cause explosions at landfills if not properly managed, but may be recovered for their energy value.
Landfill: Waste disposal site that is designed, constructed and managed to minimise potential for wastes to negatively impact human health or the environment.
Law: Legal tool generally used for primary national legislation, often at generic or ‘enabling’ level, requiring detailed regulations for its implementations.
Leachate: Water that collects contaminants as it trickles through a solid waste disposed site. Leachate may carry hazardous substances into surface water, ground water or soil.
Leachate Collection System: A system that gathers leachate.
Leachate Management: Decisions and measures to limit or eliminate the potential of leachate to impact human health or the environment.
Leachate Treatment: The reduction of the pollution potential of leachate.
Legal Framework: The framework of law, usually comprising national laws, decrees, regulations and by-laws.
License: see Permit
Liner: An impermeable barrier designed to contain leachate within a landfill. Liner materials include plastic and dense clay.
Litter: Wind blown solid wastes that have either escaped containment or been discarded into the environment.
M
Mandatory Recycling: Programs which by law require specified levels of recycling.
Manual Separation: Hand separation of compostable or recyclable material from mixed solid wastes.
Market Wastes: Wastes generated at markets
Materials Recovery Facility: Facility at which recyclable materials are prepared for transportation to a market.
Mechanical Separation: Using mechanical means to separate MSW into various components.
Medical Waste: Waste generated in the diagnosis, treatment, or immunisation of human beings or animals.
Micro-enterprise: A small-scale enterprise that usually employs fewer than ten people and may operate ‘informally’.
Mitigation: Measures taken to reduce adverse impacts on the environment.
Monitoring: Periodic or continuous surveillance or testing to determine the level of compliance with statutory requirements, or to gather data on the performance or impacts of a waste management system or facility..
Municipal Solid Waste: Generally, non-hazardous solid waste generated from households, commercial and business establishments, institutions, and industry (non process waste only). In practice, specific definitions vary across jurisdictions.
N
Not In My Backyard (NIMBY): An expression of local opposition to the siting of a waste management facility based on the particular location proposed.
Night soil: Human excreta.
Nitrogenous Wastes: Animal or vegetable residues that contain significant amounts of nitrogen.
O
Odour Control: The use of equipment such as activated carbon filters, bio-beds, odour- attenuating cover materials, and gas flaring to reduce or eliminate odorous gases emanating from decomposing wastes.
Open Burning: Uncontrolled fire in a dump.
Operating Cost: The day to day expenses of an operation including items such as labour, fuel, materials, chemicals, utilities, repairs and maintenance, and insurance.
Organic Waste: Discarded material that can be decomposed by natural organisms.
P
Packaging: Materials used to protect a product from the time it is shipped from its point of manufacture to the point of purchase
Packaging Waste: Discarded packaging.
Participation Rate: A measure of the number of people participating in a waste management initiative compared with the total number that could be participating.
Pathogenic: Capable of causing disease.
Performance Indicators: Sample data related to service delivery, such as number of employees, length of streets or total tonnes of waste collected that can be used as a measure of the efficiency or effectiveness of a waste management initiative.
Performance Monitoring: Measurement of the performance of a service on an ongoing basis, in order to determine the extent to which objectives are being met.
Permit: An authorisation, license, or equivalent control document issued by a government body to site, build or operate a waste management facility or system.
Pilot Programme: A small scale implementation of a planned initiative to determine practical workability.
Policy: A course or principal of action adopted by an organisation.
Pollution: Generally, the presence of matter or energy whose nature, location, or quantity generates undesired environmental effects.
Polluter Pay: Concept that those who create pollution should be responsible for cleaning up the pollution; in a solid waste management context, producers of products have a responsibility to participate in the management of those products when tey become a waste. See Producer Responsibility, and User Pay.
Pollution Prevention: The active process of identifying areas, processes, and activities which generate excessive waste for the purpose of substitution, alteration, or elimination of the process to prevent waste generation in the first place.
Post-Closure: The time period following the shutdown of a waste management facility during which monitoring is required to ensure that adverse impacts on public health and the environment do not occur.
Post-Consumer Materials: Materials that a consumer has finished using and which the consumer may sell, give away, or discard as waste
Post-Consumer Recycling: The reutilisation of materials that have been used by a consumer to manufacture a new product
Present Value: T he value now of a sum of money to be paid or received in the future. (See: Discount Rate).
Primary Stakeholders: Those persons, groups or institutions directly affected, either positively (beneficiaries) or negatively (for example, those involuntarily resettled) by a proposed action or plan.
Private Sector: The part of economy in which economic activity is carried out by private enterprise as distinct from the public sector.
Private Sector Participation: A partnership between the public and private sectors which allows the private sector to participate in service delivery.
Producer Responsibility: The concept that those engaged in making, distributing or selling a product have a duty to participate in the management of that product when it is discarded as a waste
Public Awareness: Creation of understanding and appreciation among the population concerning a particular issue and ways to address that issue.
Public Hearing: A formal meeting wherein governmental officials formally receive the public's views and concerns about an action or proposal.
Put or Pay Contract: Contract that requires specific quantities of waste to be delivered, and where failure to deliver the specified quantity results in payment in lieu of waste that has not been delivered.
Putrescible Waste: Discarded materials that decompose readily under aerobic or anaerobic conditions.
Q
Quality Assurance/Quality Control: A system of procedures, checks, audits, and corrective actions to ensure that delivery of waste management services meets desired standards.
R
Recovery Rate: Percentage of particular types of waste (e.g. compostable or recyclable wastes) that have been removed from the total amount of solid waste generated in a specific area or by a specific organisation.
Recurrent Costs: The costs incurred in operating MSWM services.
They can include: direct operational expenditures, such as expenditure on wages, fuel and maintenance; provisions (accrued expenses) for liabilities such as employee pension obligations and insurance payments; regular recurrent cash outlays, such as debt repayment and service capital assets progressively used up in delivering the service;
Recyclable: A used material with potential to be a feedstaock in a manufacturing process.
Recycle: The act of using a recyclable material in a manufacturing process, or of recovering a recyclable material from the waste stream.
Regulation: General term used to describe secondary national legislation and commonly taking the form of a decree.
Residential Waste: See Household Waste
Resource Recovery: The act of obtaining material or energy value from solid waste.
Responsibility: The duty to take decisions and actions.
Restoration: Actions at a waste disposal site to allow use of the site for another purpose after it has been closed to waste disposal.
Reuse: Using a component of MSW in its original form more than once, eg, refilling a glass bottle that has been returned or using a coffee can to hold nuts and bolts.
Revenue: Income.
S
Scrap: Materials (principally metallic) discarded from manufacturing operations that may be suitable for reprocessing.
Secondary Raw Materials (SRM): Materials that have been manufactured and used at least once and are to be used again.
Secondary Stakeholders: Persons, groups or organisations indirectly impacted by a planned or actual action.
Sensitivity Analysis: Analysis of how errors in one or more estimates would affect the conclusion drawn from the estimates.
Sharps: Needles, syringes, pasteur pipettes, scalpel blades, blood vials and culture dishes used in animal or human patient care or treatment, or in medical, research or industrial laboratories. Also included are other types of broken or unbroken glassware that may have been in contact with infectious agents.
Shredder: A mechanical device used to break solid waste materials into smaller pieces by tearing and impact action. Shredding MSW is done to minimise its volume or make it more readily combustible.
Siting: The process of choosing a location for a waste management facility.
Solid Waste: Discarded materials that are solid.
Source Reduction: Action taken to minimise the amount of waste entering the waste stream.
Source Separation: Segregation of designated wastes at the point of generation, usually for the purpose of facilitating recycling or composting.
Stakeholders: Persons, groups or organisations with an interest in a project or programme (see Primary Stakeholders; Secondary Stakeholders).
Standards: Governmental norms that impose limits on the amount of pollutants or emissions generated, or the ways in which waste management systems must be designed and implemented.
Storage: Temporary holding of waste, recyclable or compostable materials pending collection, transportation, treatment or disposal.
Storage Containers: Vessels used to contain solid waste during storage.
Street Sweeping: Handling, collecting and removal of waste that is present in streets.
T
Technical Assistance: The provision of specialised technical resources, often under international arrangements to an organisation to assist it to achieve its objectives to build internal capacity through training or improved management systems.
Thermal Treatment: Use of elevated temperatures to treat solid waste. (See: Incineration.)
Tipping Fee: See Gate Fee.
Transfer: Movement of waste between different stages after collection in a waste management system.
Transfer Station: A facility at which municipal solid waste from collection vehicles is consolidated into loads that are transported more economically by larger trucks or other means to more distant landfill sites.
U
User Pay: Payment for a service by the users of that service, generally in accordance with the extent to which they use the service. (See: Direct Charges and Indirect Charges).
V
Volume-Based Fees: A fee paid to manage solid waste at a facility based on the volume of solid waste delivered to the facility. (See: Gate Fee)
Volume Reduction: P rocessing solid waste to decrease the amount of space it occupies, usually by compacting, shredding or incineration.
W
Waste: Any material which its owner discards.
Waste Exchange: A facility or mechanism through which waste generated by one party may be obtained as a resource by another party.
Waste Generated: The total amount of material discarded by a generator.
Waste Management Hierarchy: The classification of strategic options available for managing waste according to the economic and environmental desirability of those options.
Waste Minimisation: See Source Reduction.
Waste Picker: A person who picks out recyclable/ reusable materials from mixed waste after it has been discarded by the generator.
Waste Stream: The total flow of waste from homes, businesses, institutions, and manufacturing plants that are recycled, composted, burned, incinerated or disposed of in dumps or landfills, or segments thereof such as the ‘residential waste stream’ or the ‘recyclable waste stream’.
Waste-to-Energy Plant: Facility for the thermal treatment of solid waste and subsequent recovery of energy.
Waste Processing and Disposal Facility: A facility comprising of solid waste processing (i.e., composting, and/or recovery of recyclable materials and/or incineration) and landfill for final disposal of residues.
Wet/Dry Collection Systems: A collection system that provides for "wet" (organic, compostable) materials to be separated by generators from "dry" (inorganic, recyclable) materials, and for each to be separately collected.
White Goods: Large household appliances such as refrigerators, stoves and/or washing machines (see bulk waste).
Windrow Composting: A common method of composting in which organic wastes are placed in rows and are periodically turned to provide aeration.
XYZ
Yard Waste ( Yard Trimmings): The part of MSW composed of grass clippings, leaves, twigs, branches and garden refuse.
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