(a) The prescribed guidelines are applicable to thermal processing facilities designed to process or which are processing 50 tons or more per day of municipal-type solid wastes. The application of this capacity criterion will be interpreted to mean any facility designed to process or actually processing 50/24 tons or more per hour. However, the guidelines do not apply to hazardous, agricultural, and mining wastes because of the lack of sufficient information upon which to base recommended procedures.

(b) The requirement sections contained herein delineate minimum levels of performance required of any solid waste thermal processing operation. The recommended procedures sections are presented to suggest preferred methods by which the objectives of the requirements can be realized. The recommended procedures are based on the practice of incineration at large facilities (50 tons per day or more) processing municipal solid waste. If techniques other than the recommended procedures are used or wastes other than municipal wastes are processed, it is the obligation of the facility's owner and operator to demonstrate to the responsible agency in advance by means of engineering calculations, pilot plant data, etc., that the techniques employed will satisfy the requirements.

(c) Thermal processing residue must be disposed of in an environmentally acceptable manner. Where a land disposal facility is employed, it must be in accordance with the Environmental Protection Agency's Guidelines for the Land Disposal of Solid Wastes for both residues from the thermal processing operation and those non-hazardous wastes which cannot be thermally processed for reasons of health, safety, or technological limitation.

(d) Pursuant to section 211 of the Solid Waste Disposal Act, as amended, these guidelines are mandatory for Federal agencies. In addition, they are recommended to State, interstate, regional, and local government agencies for use in their activities.

(e) The guidelines are intended to apply equally to all solid waste generated by Federal agencies, regardless of whether processed or disposed of on or off Federal property; and solid waste generated by non-Federal entities, but processed or disposed of on Federal property. However, in the case of many Federal facilities such as Post Offices, military recruiting stations, and other offices, local community solid waste processing and disposal facilities are utilized, and processing and disposal is not within the management control of the Federal agency. Thus, implementation of the guidelines can be expected only in those situations where the Federal agency is able to exercise direct management control over the processing and disposal operations. However, every effort must be made by the responsible agency, where offsite facilities are utilized, to attain processing and disposal facilities that are in compliance with the guidelines. Where non-Federal generated solid waste is processed and disposed of on Federal land and/or facilities, those facilities and/or sites must be in compliance with these guidelines. Determination of compliance to meet the requirements of the guidelines rests with the responsible agency, and they have the authority to determine how such compliance may occur.

As used in these guidelines:

(a) Air: Overfire air means air, under control as to quantity and direction, introduced above or beyond a fuel bed by induced or forced draft. “Underfire air” means any forced or induced air, under control as to quantity and direction, that is supplied from beneath and which passes through the solid wastes fuel bed.

(b) Bottom ash means the solid material that remains on a hearth or falls off the grate after thermal processing is complete.

(c) Combustibles means materials that can be ignited at a specific temperature in the presence of air to release heat energy.

(d) Design capacity means the weight of solid waste of a specified gross calorific value that a thermal processing facility is designed to process in 24 hours of continuous operation; usually expressed in tons per day.

(e) Discharge means water-borne pollutants released to a receiving stream directly or indirectly or to a sewerage system.

(f) Emission means gas-borne pollutants released to the atmosphere.

(g) Facility means all thermal processing equipment, buildings, and grounds at a specific site.

(h) Fly ash means suspended particles, charred paper, dust, soot, and other partially oxidized matter carried in the products of combustion.

(i) Free moisture means liquid that will drain freely by gravity from solid materials.

(j) Furnace means the chambers of the combustion train where drying, ignition, and combustion of waste material and evolved gases occur.

(k) Grate siftings means the materials that fall from the solid waste fuel bed through the grate openings.

(l) Gross calorific value means heat liberated when waste is burned completely and the products of combustion are cooled to the initial temperature of the waste. Usually expressed in British thermal units per pound.

(m) Hazardous waste means any waste or combination of wastes which pose a substantial present or potential hazard to human health or living organisms because such wastes are nondegradable or persistent in nature or because they can be biologically magnified, or because they can be lethal, or because they may otherwise cause or tend to cause detrimental cumulative effects.

(n) Incineration means the controlled process which combustible solid, liquid, or gaseous wastes are burned and changed into noncombustible gases.

(o) Incinerator means a facility consisting of one or more furnaces in which wastes are burned.

(p) Infectious waste means: (1) Equipment, instruments, utensils, and fomites of a disposable nature from the rooms of patients who are suspected to have or have been diagnosed as having a communicable disease and must, therefore, be isolated as required by public health agencies; (2) laboratory wastes such as pathological specimens (e.g., all tissues, specimens of blood elements, excreta, and secretions obtained from patients or laboratory animals) and disposable fomites (any substance that may harbor or transmit pathogenic organisms) attendant thereto; (3) surgical operating room pathologic specimens and disposable fomites attendant thereto and similar disposable materials from outpatient areas and emergency rooms.

(q) Municipal solid wastes means normally, residential and commercial solid wastes generated within a community.

(r) Open burning means burning of solid wastes in the open, such as in an open dump.

(s) Open dump means a land disposal site at which solid wastes are disposed of in a manner that does not protect the environment, are susceptible to open burning, and are exposed to the elements, vectors, and scavengers.

(t) Plans means reports and drawings, including a narrative operating description, prepared to describe the facility and its proposed operation.

(u) Residue means all the solids that remain after completion of thermal processing, including bottom ash, fly ash, and grate siftings.

(v) Responsible agency means the organizational element that has the legal duty to ensure that owners, operators, or users of facilities comply with these guidelines.

(w) Sanitary landfill means a land disposal site employing an engineered method of disposing of solid wastes on land in a manner that minimizes environmental hazards by spreading the solid wastes in thin layers, compacting the solid wastes to the smallest practical volume, and applying and compacting cover material at the end of each operating day.

(x) Sludge means the accumulated semiliquid suspension of settled solids deposited from wastewaters or other fluids in tanks or basins. It does not include solids or dissolved material in domestic sewage or other significant pollutants in water resources, such as silt, dissolved or suspended solids in industrial wastewater effluents, dissolved materials in irrigation return flows or other common water pollutants.

(y) Solid wastes means garbage, refuse, sludges, and other discarded solid materials resulting from industrial and commercial operations and from community activities. It does not include solids or dissolved material in domestic sewage or other significant pollutants in water resources, such as silt, dissolved or suspended solids in industrial wastewater effluents, dissolved materials in irrigation return flows or other common water pollutants.

(z) Special wastes means nonhazardous solid wastes requiring handling other than that normally used for municipal solid waste.

(aa) Thermal processing means processing of waste material by means of heat.

(bb) Vector means a carrier, usually an arthropod, that is capable of transmitting a pathogen from one organism to another.