Federal Regulation of Municipal Solid Waste Landfills
             Municipal solid waste, MSW, is a term used to refer to a wide variety of waste sources. Generally, solid waste refers to all materials or substances discarded or rejected as being spent, useless or in excess to the owners at the time of such discard or rejection. Waste includes but is not limited to: garbage; refuse; industrial and commercial waste; sludge from air or water control facilities; rubbish; ashes; contained gaseous material; incinerator residue; demolition and construction debris; discarded automobiles and offal. The Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, chooses to define this term slightly differently depending on the context in which it is being used. In the MSW Settlement Proposal, MSW is defined as "solid waste that is generated primarily by households, but that may include some contribution of wastes from commercial, institutional and industrial sources as well." Solid waste is generally anything discarded with several specific exceptions. Most solid waste, when it goes to a landfill, goes to a Municipal Solid Waste Landfill, MSWLF.
             A municipal solid waste landfill is defined by law as a discrete area of land or an excavation that receives household waste, and that is not a land application unit, surface impoundment, injection well, or waste pile. Household waste includes any solid waste, including garbage, trash, and septic tank waste, derived from houses, apartments, hotels, motels, campgrounds, and picnic grounds. An MSWLF unit also may receive other types of wastes as defined under Subtitle D of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, such as commercial solid waste, non-hazardous sludge, small quantity generator waste and industrial solid waste. Also allowed in municipal solid waste landfills are industrial and commercial non-hazardous process wastes, construction and demolition debris, municipal sludge, and agricultural wastes. In addition, these lan...