In this chapter:
(1) “Advisory council” means the Municipal Solid Waste Management and source Recovery Advisory Council.
(2) “Commission” means the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission.
(3) “Executive director” means the executive director of the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission.
(4) “Disposal” means the discharge, deposit, injection, dumping, spilling, leaking, or placing of containerized or uncontainerized solid waste or hazardous waste into or on land or water so that the solid waste or hazardous waste or any constituent of solid waste or hazardous waste may enter the environment or be emitted into the air or discharged into surface water or groundwater.
(5) “Governing body” means the governing body of a municipality, the commissioners court, the board of directors, the trustees, or a similar body charged by law with governing a public agency.
(6) “Hazardous waste” means solid waste identified or listed as a hazardous waste by the administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency under the federal Solid Waste Disposal Act, as amended by the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (42 U.S.C. § 6901 et seq.).
(7) “Industrial solid waste” means solid waste resulting from or incidental to a process of industry or manufacturing, or mining or agricultural operations.
(8) “Local government” means a county, municipality, or other political subdivision of the state exercising the authority granted under Section 361.165 (Solid Waste Disposal Act).
(9) “Municipal solid waste” means solid waste resulting from or incidental to municipal, community, commercial, institutional, and recreational activities, and includes garbage, rubbish, ashes, street cleanings, dead animals, abandoned automobiles, and other solid waste other than industrial solid waste.
(10) “Planning fund” means the municipal solid waste management planning fund.
(11) “Planning region” means a region of this state identified by the governor as an appropriate region for municipal solid waste planning as provided by Section 4006 of the federal Solid Waste Disposal Act, as amended by the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (42 U.S.C. § 6901 et seq.).
(12) “Processing” means the extraction of materials, transfer, volume reduction, conversion to energy, or other separation and preparation of solid waste for reuse or disposal, including treatment or neutralization of hazardous waste designed to change the physical, chemical, or biological character or composition of hazardous waste so as to:
(A) neutralize hazardous waste;
(B) recover energy or material from hazardous waste; or
(C) render hazardous waste nonhazardous or less hazardous, safer to transport, store, or dispose of, amenable for recovery or storage, or reduced in volume.
(13) “Property” means land, structures, interest in land, air rights, water rights, and rights that accompany interest in land, structures, water rights, and air rights and includes easements, rights-of-way, uses, leases, incorporeal hereditaments, legal and equitable estates, interest, or rights such as terms for years and liens.
(14) “Public agency” means a municipality, county, or district or authority created and operating under Article III, Section 52(b)(1) or (2), or Article XVI, Section 59, of the Texas Constitution, or a combination of two or more of those governmental entities acting under an interlocal agreement and having the authority under this chapter or other law to own and operate a solid waste management system.
(15) “Regional or local solid waste management plan” means a plan adopted by a planning region under Section 363.062 or a local government under Section 363.063.
(16) “Resolution” means the action, including an order or ordinance, that authorizes bonds and that is taken by the governing body.
(17) “Resource recovery” means recovering materials or energy from solid waste or otherwise converting solid waste to a useful purpose.
(18) “Resource recovery system” means real property, structures, plants, works, facilities, equipment, pipelines, machinery, vehicles, vessels, rolling stock, licenses, or franchises used or useful in connection with processing solid waste to extract, recover, reclaim, salvage, reduce, or concentrate the solid waste or convert it to energy or useful matter or resources, including electricity, steam, or other forms of energy, metal, fertilizer, glass, or other forms of material and resources. The term includes real property, structures, plants, works, facilities, pipelines, machinery, vehicles, vessels, rolling stock, licenses, or franchises used or useful in:
(A) transporting, receiving, storing, transferring, and handling solid waste;
(B) preparing, separating, or processing solid waste for reuse;
(C) handling and transporting recovered matter, resources, or energy; and
(D) handling, transporting, and disposing of nonrecoverable solid waste residue.
(19) “Solid waste” means garbage, rubbish, sludge from a wastewater 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, municipal, commercial, mining, and agricultural operations and from community and institutional activities, but does not include:
(A) solid or dissolved material in domestic sewage or irrigation return flows or industrial discharges subject to regulation by permit issued under Chapter 26, Water Code;
(B) soil, dirt, rock, sand, and other natural or man-made inert solid materials used to fill land if the object of the fill is to make the land suitable for surface improvement construction; or
(C) waste materials that result from activities associated with the exploration, development, or production of oil or gas and are subject to control by the Railroad Commission of Texas.
(20) “Solid waste management” means the systematic control of any of the following activities:
(A) generation;
(B) source separation;
(C) collection;
(D) handling;
(E) storage;
(F) transportation;
(G) processing;
(H) treatment;
(I) resource recovery; or
(J) disposal of solid waste.
(21) “Solid waste management system” means a plant, composting process plant, incinerator, sanitary landfill, transfer station, or other works and equipment that is acquired, installed, or operated to collect, handle, store, process, recover material or energy from, or dispose of solid waste, and includes sites for those works and equipment.
(22) “State solid waste management plan” means the Solid Waste Management Plan for Texas, Volume 1, Municipal Solid Waste, adopted by the Texas Board of Health, including subsequent amendments by the commission.
(23) “Technical assistance fund” means the municipal solid waste resource recovery applied research and technical assistance fund.
(24) “Yard waste” means leaves, grass clippings, yard and garden debris, and brush, including clean woody vegetative material not greater than six inches in diameter, that result from landscaping maintenance and land-clearing operations. The term does not include stumps, roots, or shrubs with intact root balls.