42 USC 6944 – Criteria for sanitary landfills; sanitary landfills required for all disposal
(a) Criteria for sanitary landfills
Not later than one year after October 21, 1976, after consultation with the States, and after notice and public hearings, the Administrator shall promulgate regulations containing criteria for determining which facilities shall be classified as sanitary landfills and which shall be classified as open dumps within the meaning of this chapter. At a minimum, such criteria shall provide that a facility may be classified as a sanitary landfill and not an open dump only if there is no reasonable probability of adverse effects on health or the environment from disposal of solid waste at such facility. Such regulations may provide for the classification of the types of sanitary landfills.
(b) Disposal required to be in sanitary landfills, etc.
Terms Used In 42 USC 6944
- Administrator: means the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. See 42 USC 6903
- disposal: means the discharge, deposit, injection, dumping, spilling, leaking, or placing of any solid waste or hazardous waste into or on any land or water so that such solid waste or hazardous waste or any constituent thereof may enter the environment or be emitted into the air or discharged into any waters, including ground waters. See 42 USC 6903
- open dump: means any facility or site where solid waste is disposed of which is not a sanitary landfill which meets the criteria promulgated under section 6944 of this title and which is not a facility for disposal of hazardous waste. See 42 USC 6903
- sanitary landfill: means a facility for the disposal of solid waste which meets the criteria published under section 6944 of this title. See 42 USC 6903
- solid waste: means any garbage, refuse, sludge from a waste treatment plant, water supply treatment plant, or air pollution control facility and other discarded material, including solid, liquid, semisolid, or contained gaseous material resulting from industrial, commercial, mining, and agricultural operations, and from community activities, but does not include solid or dissolved material in domestic sewage, or solid or dissolved materials in irrigation return flows or industrial discharges which are point sources subject to permits under section 1342 of title 33, or source, special nuclear, or byproduct material as defined by the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended (68 Stat. See 42 USC 6903
- State: means any of the several States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. See 42 USC 6903
For purposes of complying with section 6943(2) 1 of this title each State plan shall prohibit the establishment of open dumps and contain a requirement that disposal of all solid waste within the State shall be in compliance with such section 6943(2) 1 of this title.
(c) Effective date
The prohibition contained in subsection (b) shall take effect on the date six months after the date of promulgation of regulations under subsection (a).