El Dorado County Municipal Code Art. I In General

Whenever reference to the provisions of this chapter is required, this chapter may be referred to as the County Solid Waste Management Ordinance.

(Code 1997, § 8.42.010; Ord. No. 5262, 5-19-2026)

Whenever the following terms are used in this chapter, they shall have the following meanings, except where the context clearly indicates a different meaning:

Biomedical waste means solid waste or other materials, substances or items which may be reasonably considered infectious, pathological or biohazardous, originating from hospitals, public or private medical clinics, departments of research laboratories, pharmaceutical industries, blood banks, forensic medical departments, mortuaries, veterinary facilities and other similar facilities and includes (without limitation) equipment, instruments, utensils, fomites, laboratory waste (including pathological specimens and fomites attendant thereto), surgical facilities, equipment, bedding and utensils (including pathological specimens and disposal fomites attendant thereto), sharps (hypodermic needles, syringes, etc.), dialysis unit waste, chemotherapeutic waste, animal carcasses, offal and body parts, biological materials (vaccines, medicines, etc.), and other similar materials.

Buy-back recycling center means a facility that pays a fee for the delivery and transfer of ownership to the facility of source separated materials for the purpose of recycling, transformation or composting.

Collection means the operation of gathering together and transporting to the point of disposal or processing any garbage, refuse, rubbish, solid waste, recyclable, transformable or compostable waste materials.

Commercial premises means that portion of any building or other premises which is not a residence, residential unit or housekeeping unit.

Compostable materials or compostables includes vegetable, yard, and wood wastes which are not hazardous waste.

Department means the Department of Environmental Management or its designee.

Development project means any of the following:

1. A project for which a discretionary development approval or a building permit is required for any public facility, commercial, industrial, or institutional building, marina, or residential building having five or more units, where solid waste is collected and loaded and any residential project where solid waste is collected and loaded in a location serving five or more units.

2. Any new public facility where solid waste is collected and loaded and any improvements for areas of a public facility used for the collecting and loading of solid waste.

3. The definition of development project only includes subdivisions of single family homes, if within the proposed subdivisions there is an area where solid waste is collected and loaded in a location which serves five or more units. In such instances, recycling areas as specified in this chapter are only required to serve the needs of the living units which utilize the solid waste collection and loading area.

Director means the County Director of Environmental Management or his or her designee.

Disposal site means any land and facilities franchised by the Board pursuant to this chapter, whether owned by the County or another person and whether or not open to the public, used for the final disposal of solid wastes, and does not include transfer stations or transformation or processing facilities.

Drop-off recycling center means a facility which accepts delivery or transfer of ownership, without paying a fee, of source separated materials, including, but not limited to, glass, scrap paper, corrugated paper, newspaper, tin cans, aluminum, plastic and used oil which will be transported and/or sold to third parties for reuse or resale. The donation of materials to collecting organizations, such as charitable groups, is included in this definition.

East Slope Waste Management Service Area means Zone C of County Service Area No. 10, also known as the County portion of the Lake Tahoe Basin Watershed as may be modified from time to time by the Board.

Franchisee means any person that has entered into a franchise agreement with the County to collect, remove, transport, process or dispose of solid waste or recyclables or compostables, or to operate any solid waste facility.

Hazardous waste means any and all of the following:

1. Wastes, materials or substances defined or characterized as hazardous waste by the Federal Solid Waste Disposal Act, as amended, including the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (42 U.S.C. 6901 et seq.) as amended from time to time, or regulations promulgated thereunder;

2. Waste, materials or substances defined or characterized from time to time as hazardous waste by the California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) having jurisdiction over hazardous waste generated by facilities within the State, and pursuant to any other applicable government regulations;

3. Wastes, materials or substances, the storage, treatment, transportation or disposal of which is subject to regulation under the Toxic Substances Control Act, 15 U.S.C. 2601-2654, as amended from time to time, or regulations promulgated thereunder;

4. Radioactive wastes, materials, substances or items, the storage, treatment, transportation or disposal of which is subject to government regulations; and

5. Wastes, materials, substances or items which contain polychlorinated biphenyls.

The term "hazardous waste" will be construed to have the broader, more encompassing definition where a conflict exists in the definitions employed by two or more governmental entities having concurrent or overlapping jurisdiction over hazardous waste.

Household hazardous waste means household-generated hazardous wastes, as defined in any of the following; Public Resources Code § 40141; Title 14 California Code of Regulations § 17225.32; and the California Hazardous Substances Act (Health and Safety Code § 108100 et seq.).

Litter means any quantity of improperly discarded solid waste, including, but not limited to, discarded furniture and appliances, overflowing residential and commercial trash cans, pieces of lumber and scrap metal left at a construction site, uncontainerized paper such as fast-food packages, candy wrappers, cigarette butts, and/or plastic, glass, trash, debris, rubbish, refuse, garbage or junk parts and scrap materials.

Littering means the improper discarding, dropping or scattering of small quantities of waste matter ordinarily carried on or about the person, including, but not limited to, beverage containers and closures, packaging, wrappers, wastepaper, newspapers and magazines, in any place other than a place or container maintained for the lawful disposal thereof, includes waste matter which escapes or is allowed to escape from a vehicle, container, receptacle or package.

Local enforcement agency means the Building Department, or such other agency as may be so designated pursuant to Public Resources Code § 43204.

Mandatory collection area means the area described in Article III of this chapter.

Materials recovery facility means an area, place, site, building, equipment, process or combination thereof, which is franchised by the Board pursuant to this chapter, where or by which useful materials or energy resources are obtained from solid waste.

Multiple residential units means two or more residential units located in a single building or unified group of buildings.

Municipal solid waste means all solid waste generated by residential, commercial, and industrial sources, and all solid waste generated at construction or demolition sites and at food-processing facilities, which is collected and transported under the authorization of this chapter or are self-hauled.

Nuisance means the existence or accumulation, without the authority of the County, of litter, trash, manure, rubbish, scrap materials, junk parts, garbage, or refuse of any kind upon private or public property; provided, however, that said refuse is visible to the occupants of an adjacent or nearby parcel or real property, or to the users of any right-of-way.

Owner shall conclusively be deemed to be the person to whom the taxes on the property are assessed as shown on the last equalized assessment roll of the County, or alternatively, from such records of the County Assessor or Tax Collector as contain more recent information.

Person includes an individual, firm, association, copartnership, political subdivision, government agency, municipality, industry, public or private corporation, or any other entity whatsoever.

Private property includes, but is not limited to, the following exterior locations owned by private individuals, firms, corporations, institutions or organizations: yards, grounds, driveways, entrance-ways, passageways, parking areas, working areas, storage areas, vacant lots and recreation facilities.

Processing facility means the place, site of equipment franchised by the Board where or by which solid wastes are processed. The term "processing facility" does not include commercial and home garbage disposal units, which are used to process food wastes and are part of the sewage system, or hospital incinerators, crematoriums, paper shredders in commercial establishments, or equipment used by a drop-off recycling or buy-back center.

Public property includes, but is not limited to, the following exterior locations: streets, street medians, roads, road medians, catch basins, sidewalks, lanes, alleys, public right-of-way, public parking lots, school grounds, municipal grounds, municipal vacant lots, parks, beaches, playgrounds, other publicly owned recreation facilities and municipal waterways and bodies of water.

Recyclables or recyclable material means materials which are reused or processed or are in the future reused or processed into a form suitable for reuse through reprocessing or remanufacture, that are currently able to be recycled in a technologically, economically, and culturally practical manner as determined by the Department.

Recycle or recycling means the process of collecting, sorting, cleansing, treating, and reconstituting materials that would otherwise become solid waste, and returning them to the economic mainstream in the form of raw material for new, reused, or reconstituted products which meet the quality standards necessary to be used in the marketplace.

Recycling area means space allocated for collecting and loading of recyclable materials. Such areas shall have the ability to accommodate receptacles for recyclable materials. Recycling areas shall be accessible and convenient for those who deposit as well as those who collect and load any recyclable materials therein.

Recycling container means a container which is provided to a residential, commercial, or industrial waste collection customer for the sole purpose of containing recyclable materials that are source separated from the non-recyclable portion of the waste stream.

Residential container means a container in which residential solid waste is deposited. This does not include containers in which recyclable materials are placed. A residential container is defined as being 32 gallons or less in size or 60 pounds by weight. Containers larger than 32 gallons are considered to be multiple cans, in increments of 32 gallons.

Residential service means solid waste or recyclable or compostable material collection service for homes, apartments, trailers, or other residential units as provided by a franchisee under this chapter.

Residential unit means a room or combination of rooms in a single building designed for human living, sleeping, eating, and sanitary uses by a single family and their servants and nonpaying guests, and having cooking facilities. There may be more than one residential unit in a single building.

Solid waste or refuse means all putrescible and nonputrescible solid, semi-solid, and liquid wastes, including garbage, trash, refuse, paper, rubbish, ashes, industrial wastes, demolition and construction wastes, discarded home and industrial appliances, manure, vegetable or animal solid and semi-solid wastes, and other discarded solid and semi-solid wastes.

Source separated means the segregation, by the waste generator, of materials designated for separate collection for some form of materials recovery, recycling, or special handling.

Special wastes means any designated wastes, as defined in 23 California Code of Regulations § 2522, and special handling waste generated by industrial facilities or processes, but shall not include "hazardous waste" as defined herein. Special wastes shall include: asbestos, sewage sludge, tires, water treatment sludge, drilling mud, grease wastes, contaminated soils, shredder waste, agricultural wastes, filter cake/dewatered sludge, scrap metal, spent catalyst fines, refinery ash and byproducts; except where any such wastes are deemed to be hazardous waste.

Transfer station means those facilities, franchised by the Board pursuant this chapter, utilized to receive solid waste or recyclable materials, temporarily store, separate, convert, or otherwise process the materials in solid wastes or to transfer the solid wastes directly from smaller to larger vehicles for transport.

Transformation means incineration, pyrolysis, distillation, gasification, or biological conversion other than composting. The term "transformation" does not include composting.

West Slope Waste Management Service Area means County Service Area Number 10, excluding Zone C which is also known as the County portion of the Lake Tahoe Basin as the geographical boundaries of this area may be modified from time to time by the Board.

Yard waste means leaves, grass clippings, prunings, pine needles and other natural organic matter discarded from public, commercial or residential landscapes.

(Code 1997, § 8.42.020; Ord. No. 5051, § 2, 4-18-2017; Ord. No. 5262, 5-19-2026)