Delaware Code
Subchapter I. General Provisions
§ 6402. Definitions.

The following terms shall have the meanings ascribed to them in this chapter:

(1) “Authority” means the Delaware Solid Waste Authority.
(2) “Costs” means the cost or fair market value or value, as determined by the Authority, of construction, real property, property rights, utility extensions, disposal facilities, access roads, easements, franchises, financing charges, interest, labor, materials, machinery and equipment, engineering and legal services, plans, specifications, surveys, cost estimates, studies, transportation and other expenses necessary or incidental to the design, development, construction, financing, management and operation and maintenance of a waste management project, and such other costs or expenses of the Authority as may be necessary or incidental to the purposes of the Authority, including administrative and operating costs, research and development and operating capital, including fees, charges, loans, insurance and the expense of purchasing real and personal property, including waste management projects.
(3) “Department” means the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control.
(4) “Facility” means any solid waste disposal site, system or process and the operation thereof, including but not limited to personnel, equipment and buildings.
(5) “Groundwater” means any water naturally found under the surface of the earth.
(6) “Industrial solid waste” means solid waste produced by or resulting from industrial applications, processes or operations.
(7) “Infectious waste” means those wastes which may cause human disease and may reasonably be suspected of harboring human pathogenic organisms, or may pose a substantial present or potential hazard to human health or the environment when improperly treated, stored, transported, disposed of or otherwise managed. Types of wastes designated as infectious include, but are not necessarily limited to, the following:

a. Biological wastes which shall include, but not be limited to:

1. Animal tissue, bedding and other waste from animals known or suspected to be infected with a pathogen which also causes human disease, provided that prevailing evidence indicates that such tissue, bedding or other waste may act as a vehicle of transmission to humans.
2. “Biological liquid wastes” which shall mean blood and blood products, excretions, exudates, secretions, suctionings and other body fluids including liquid wastes from renal dialysis.
3. “Cultures and stocks of etiologic agents and associated biological wastes” which shall mean, but is not limited to, specimen cultures, cultures and stocks of etiologic agents and wastes from production of biologicals and serums.
4. Human dialysis waste materials including blood lines and dialysate membranes.
5. “Laboratory wastes” which shall mean those wastes which have come in contact with pathogenic organisms and blood or body fluids. Such wastes include, but are not limited to, disposable materials, culture dishes, devices used to transfer, inoculate and mix cultures, paper and cloth which have come in contact with specimens or cultures which have not been sterilized or rendered noninfectious; or laboratory wastes, including cultures of etiologic agents, which pose a substantial threat to health due to their volume and virulence.
6. “Pathological wastes” which shall mean all human tissues and anatomical remains, including human fetal remains, which emanate from surgery, obstetrical procedures, autopsy and laboratory procedures.
b. “Discarded biologicals” which shall mean serums and vaccines produced by pharmaceutical companies for human or veterinary use. These products may be discarded because of a bad manufacturing lot (i.e., off-specification material that does not pass quality control or that is recalled), out-dating or removal of the product from the market or other reasons. Because of the possible presence of etiologic agents in these products, the discarded material constitutes infectious waste.
c. “Other infectious wastes” which shall mean any residue or contaminated soil, water or other debris resulting from the cleanup of a spill of any infectious waste.
d. “Sharps” which shall mean any discarded article that may cause puncture or cuts. Such wastes include but are not limited to, needles, intravenous infravenous tubing with needles attached, scalpel blades, glassware and syringes that have been removed from their original sterile containers.
(8) “Infectious waste generator” means hospitals, inpatient or outpatient clinics, laboratories, medical offices, dental offices, nursing homes and inpatient residential facilities serving persons with diseases which may be transmitted through contact with infectious wastes as well as veterinarian facilities and research laboratories operating within the State.
(9) “Municipality” or “municipalities” means a county, city, town or other public body of the State.
(10) “Person” means any individual, partnership, corporation, association, institution, cooperative enterprise, municipality, commission, political subdivision or other duly established legal entity.
(11) “Resources recovery” means the recovery of energy and materials from solid wastes in a saleable form which will allow their reuse in specific market applications.
(12) “Resources recovery systems” means systems specifically designed for recycling solid wastes into energy and materials.
(13) “Revenues” means all revenues to the Authority including but not limited to those generated through user charges and the sale of recycling products through resources recovery systems and facilities.
(14) “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 § 402 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, as amended (86 Stat. 880) [33 U.S.C. § 1342], or source, special nuclear or by-product material as defined by the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended (68 Stat. 923) [42 U.S.C. § 2014].
(15) “Solid waste management services” means services including but not limited to the collection, transportation, storage, transfer, processing, recycling or disposal of solid wastes.
(16) “Surface water” means water occurring generally on the surface of the earth.
(17) “Users” means any person who delivers and/or deposits solid waste at a facility for subsequent processing, disposal or recycling.
(18) “Volume reduction” means a system or process for physically or chemically reducing the volume of solid wastes.