Virginia Code 10.1-1411: Regional and local solid waste management plans.
A. The Board is authorized to promulgate regulations specifying requirements for local and regional solid waste management plans.
Terms Used In Virginia Code 10.1-1411
- Amendment: A proposal to alter the text of a pending bill or other measure by striking out some of it, by inserting new language, or both. Before an amendment becomes part of the measure, thelegislature must agree to it.
- Board: means the Virginia Waste Management Board. See Virginia Code 10.1-1400
- City: means an independent incorporated community which became a city as provided by law before noon on July 1, 1971, or which has within defined boundaries a population of 5,000 or more and which has become a city as provided by law. See Virginia Code 1-208
- Department: means the Department of Environmental Quality. See Virginia Code 10.1-1400
- Disposal: means the discharge, deposit, injection, dumping, spilling, leaking, or placing of any solid waste into or on any land or water so that such solid waste or any constituent thereof may enter the environment or be emitted into the air or discharged into any waters, including ground waters. See Virginia Code 10.1-1400
- Locality: means a county, city, or town as the context may require. See Virginia Code 1-221
- Recycling residue: means the (i) nonmetallic substances, including plastic, rubber, and insulation, that remain after a shredder has separated for purposes of recycling the ferrous and nonferrous metal from a motor vehicle, appliance, or other discarded metallic item and (ii) organic waste remaining after removal of metals, glass, plastics, and paper that are to be recycled as part of a resource recovery process for municipal solid waste resulting in the production of a refuse derived fuel. See Virginia Code 10.1-1400
- Sanitary landfill: means a disposal facility for solid waste so located, designed, and operated that it does not pose a substantial present or potential hazard to human health or the environment, including pollution of air, land, surface water, or ground water. See Virginia Code 10.1-1400
- Solid waste: means any garbage, refuse, sludge, and other discarded material, including solid, liquid, semisolid, or contained gaseous material, resulting from industrial, commercial, mining, and agricultural operations, or community activities, but does not include (i) solid or dissolved material in domestic sewage; (ii) solid or dissolved material in irrigation return flows or in industrial discharges that are sources subject to a permit from the State Water Control Board; (iii) source, special nuclear, or by-product material as defined by the Federal Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended; or (iv) post-use polymers or recovered feedstocks that are (a) processed at an advanced recycling facility or (b) held at or held for the purpose of conversion at such advanced recycling facility prior to conversion. See Virginia Code 10.1-1400
- State: when applied to a part of the United States, includes any of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the United States Virgin Islands. See Virginia Code 1-245
- Town: means any existing town or an incorporated community within one or more counties which became a town before noon, July 1, 1971, as provided by law or which has within defined boundaries a population of 1,000 or more and which has become a town as provided by law. See Virginia Code 1-254
- transportation: means any movement of property and any packing, loading, or unloading or storage incidental thereto. See Virginia Code 10.1-1400
- Treatment: means any method, technique, or process, including incineration or neutralization, designed to change the physical, chemical, or biological character or composition of any waste to neutralize it or to render it less hazardous or nonhazardous, safer for transport, amenable to recovery or storage, or reduced in volume. See Virginia Code 10.1-1400
- United States: includes the 50 states, the District of Columbia the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the United States Virgin Islands. See Virginia Code 1-255
- Waste: means any solid, hazardous, or radioactive waste as defined in this section. See Virginia Code 10.1-1400
- Waste management: means the collection, source separation, storage, transportation, transfer, processing, treatment, and disposal of waste or resource recovery. See Virginia Code 10.1-1400
To implement regional plans, the Governor may designate regional boundaries. The governing bodies of the counties, cities and towns within any region so designated shall be responsible for the development and implementation of a comprehensive regional solid waste management plan in cooperation with any planning district commission or commissions in the region. Where a county, city or town is not part of a regional plan, it shall develop and implement a local solid waste management plan in accordance with the Board’s regulations. For purposes of this section, each region or locality so designated shall constitute a solid waste planning unit.
B. The Board’s regulations shall include all aspects of solid waste management including waste reduction, recycling and reuse, storage, treatment, and disposal and shall require that consideration be given to the handling of all types of nonhazardous solid waste generated in the region or locality. In promulgating such regulations, the Board shall consider urban concentrations, geographic conditions, markets, transportation conditions, and other appropriate factors and shall provide for reasonable variances and exemptions thereto, as well as variances or exemptions from the minimum recycling rates specified herein when market conditions beyond the control of a county, city, town, or region make such mandatory rates unreasonable.
C. The Board’s regulations shall permit the following credits, provided that the aggregate of all such credits permitted shall not exceed five percentage points of the annual municipal solid waste recycling rate achieved for each solid waste planning unit:
1. A credit of one ton for each ton of recycling residue generated in Virginia and deposited in a landfill permitted under subsection M of § 10.1-1408.1;
2. A credit of two percentage points of the minimum recycling rate mandated for the solid waste planning unit for a source reduction program that is implemented with the solid waste planning unit. The existence and operation of such a program shall be certified by the solid waste planning unit;
3. A credit of one ton for each ton of any solid waste material that is reused; and
4. A credit of one ton for each ton of any nonmunicipal solid waste material that is recycled.
D. Each solid waste planning unit shall maintain a minimum recycling rate for municipal solid waste generated within the solid waste planning unit pursuant to the following schedule:
1. Except as provided in subdivision 2, each solid waste planning unit shall maintain a minimum 25 percent recycling rate; or
2. Each solid waste planning unit shall maintain a minimum 15 percent recycling rate if it has (i) a population density rate of less than 100 persons per square mile according to the most recent United States Census, or (ii) a not seasonally adjusted civilian unemployment rate for the immediately preceding calendar year that is at least 50 percent greater than the state average as reported by the Virginia Employment Commission for such year.
After July 1, 2007, no permit for a new sanitary landfill, incinerator, or waste-to-energy facility, or for an expansion, increase in capacity, or increase in the intake rate of an existing sanitary landfill, incinerator, or waste-to-energy facility shall be issued until the solid waste planning unit within which the facility is located has a solid waste management plan approved by the Board in accordance with the regulations, except as provided in this subsection. Failure to attain a mandated municipal solid waste recycling rate shall not be the sole cause for the denial of any permit or permit amendment, except as provided herein for sanitary landfills, incinerators, or waste-to-energy facilities, provided that all components of the solid waste management plan for the planning unit are in compliance with the regulations. The provisions of this subsection shall not be applicable to permits or permit amendments required for the operation or regulatory compliance of any existing facility, regardless of type, nor shall it be cause for the delay of any technical or administrative review of pending amendments thereto.
E. Each solid waste planning unit or locality with a population of greater than 100,000 persons according to the most recent United States census shall prepare and submit a recycling survey report to the Department of Environmental Quality annually. Each solid waste planning unit or locality with a population of 100,000 or less according to the most recent United States census shall prepare and submit a recycling survey report to the Department of Environmental Quality once every four years. Recycling survey reports submitted once every four years shall only be required to include information for the most recent single year. The first reports submitted pursuant to this section shall be submitted by April 30, 2013, for the reporting year ending December 31, 2012.
F. If a county levies a consumer utility tax and the ordinance provides that revenues derived from such source, to the extent necessary, be used for solid waste disposal, the county may charge a town or its residents, establishments and institutions an amount not to exceed their pro rata cost, based upon population for such solid waste management if the town levies a consumer utility tax. This shall not prohibit a county from charging for disposal of industrial or commercial waste on a county-wide basis, including that originating within the corporate limits of towns.
1986, c. 492, § 10-274; 1987, c. 249; 1988, c. 891; 1989, c. 440; 1990, cc. 574, 781; 1991, c. 237; 1995, c. 216; 1997, c. 495; 2006, cc. 7, 40; 2012, c. 834.