Definition of Waste

Implications for Industry

Historically, substances discarded as waste have been dumped, typically in dedicated landfills, waterways, [Page 174]or the ocean, even though those substances might have been useful. When regulators progressively restrict land available for (legal) dumping and prohibit discharge to waterways or the atmosphere, pressure to use waste increases. Industry is particularly sensitive to such pressure as the range of options to dispose of waste narrows and the costs increase. However, industry faces a dilemma: it generates many types of waste that are not readily recycled in the way that various resources such as glass, paper, and plastic are routinely recovered from municipal and commercial waste. The dilemma is that in abiding by the immutable definitions of waste prescribed to protect the environment, the regulator acts to inhibit rather than facilitate the use of waste. A substance discarded by its generator (such as the manufacturer that created it) is defined as waste by the authorities even though it may be regarded by others as usable. This implies the transition of a substance from one state to the other, notwithstanding the fact that it remains physically unchanged. The dilemma may be resolved by a definition of waste that accommodates such a transition and incorporates a notion of where it is deemed to occur.

To this end, industrial waste is defined as any substance not required by a generator and is therefore to be discarded from the site at which the substance is located. Transiting the site boundary represents the point at which the waste may become usable. This definition includes any form of matter that is accidentally or otherwise discharged to the environment.

Want and Custody

The notion of want as expressed by “not required” is the defining criterion for what constitutes waste. A substance remains waste for as long as it remains unwanted for a purpose (other than preparation for dumping). If, after a substance has left the generator's site, it is wanted by a user, then it may be accorded a different status. Some part of the original waste may become waste again, if that part ceases to be wanted by one or more subsequent users.

The issue of custody is relevant to this definition of waste, although its legal meaning may be construed differently from one jurisdiction to another. In the context of industrial waste, the general meaning of custody implies physical possession of the waste or a responsibility for its care and its fate. The encumbered entity (a person or a corporation) is the custodian who, in the first instance, would be the generator of the waste. In some jurisdictions, custody—responsibility for its fate—resides with the generator until the waste in question is “unrecognizably transformed,” even though it may have been in the possession of others before that point.

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