(1) The existing California Integrated Waste Management Act of 1989, which is administered by the California Integrated Waste Management Board, establishes an integrated waste management program. The act requires each city, county, city and county, and regional agency, if any, to develop a source reduction and recycling element of an integrated waste management plan containing specified components. Existing law also requires each city, county, and city and county to adopt a nondisposal facility element consistent with the implementation of the source reduction and recycling element. Existing law requires the nondisposal facility element, and any amendments to the element, to be appended to the source reduction and recycling element when that element is included in the integrated waste management plan.
This bill would authorize, rather than require, the nondisposal facility element to be appended to the source reduction and recycling element.
Existing law defines terms for purposes of the act and requires the board to adopt regulations that define “rural area” in a manner that establishes criteria and conditions applicable only to counties and cities located in those areas of the state that are rural in character, including those counties and cities that are located in agricultural or mountainous areas of the state and geographically distant from markets for recyclable materials.
This bill would delete the requirement that the board adopt regulations that define “rural area.” The bill, instead, would define “rural area,” in statute for purposes of the act, to mean those counties and cities located in agricultural or mountainous areas of the state and located outside the Department of Finance’s Primary Metropolitan Statistical Areas. The bill would revise the definition of “rural city” for purposes of the act.
(2) Existing law requires that recycled materials and inert waste removed from the waste stream, and not disposed of in a solid waste landfill, not be included for the purpose of assessing specified fees.
This bill would specify, until January 1, 2002, the meaning of inert waste for the purposes of this provision.
This bill would declare that this definition does not affect specified provisions relating to the use of solid waste for beneficial reuse in the construction and operation of a solid waste landfill, relating to specified diversion requirements, and relating to the authority of the Integrated Waste Management Board to permit, adopt standards, or otherwise regulate specified aspects of solid waste management.