Sonoma County Municipal Code Art. II Definitions

As used in this chapter, the following words and phrases shall be defined as follows:

(a) "AB 341" means the California Jobs and Recycling Act of 2011 (Chapter 476, Statues of 2011 [Chesbro, AB 341]), also commonly referred to as "AB 341", as amended and supplemented, superseded, and replaced from time to time.

(b) "AB 1826" means the Organic Waste Recycling Act of 2014 (Chapter 727, Statues of 2014 modifying Division 30 of the California Public Resources Code), also commonly referred to as "AB 1826", as amended and supplemented, superseded, and replaced from time to time.

(c) "Act" means the California Integrated Waste Management Act of 1989 (California Public Resources Code § 400000 et. seq.), as amended, supplemented, superseded and replaced from time to time and as implemented by the regulations of the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle), or its successor agency.

(d) "Bin" means a container with capacity of approximately one (1) to six (6) cubic yards, with a hinged lid, and with wheels where appropriate, that is serviced by a front end-loading collection vehicle.

(e) "Blue container" means a container where either: (A) The lid of the container is blue in color, or (B) The body of the container is blue in color and the lid is blue, gray, or black in color. The blue container shall be used exclusively for the purpose of storage and collection of source separated recyclable materials.

(f) "Cart" means a plastic container with a hinged lid and wheels that is serviced by an automated or semi-automated collection vehicle. A cart has a capacity of thirty-two (32), sixty-four (64) or ninety-six (96) gallons (or similar volumes).

(g) "California Code of Regulations" or "CCR" means the State of California Code of Regulations. CCR references in this ordinance are preceded with a number that refers to the relevant Title of the CCR (e.g., "14 CCR" refers to Title 14 of CCR).

(h) "Collection" means the act of collecting solid waste, recyclable materials, organics, and C&D and other material at the place of generation in the county.

(i) "Commercial business" or "commercial" means a firm, partnership, proprietorship, joint-stock company, corporation, or association, whether for-profit or nonprofit, strip mall, industrial facility, or a multi-family residential dwelling. A multi-family residential dwelling that consists of fewer than five (5) units is not a commercial business for purposes of implementing this ordinance.

(j) "Commercial edible food generator" includes a tier one or a tier two commercial edible food generator. For the purposes of this definition, food recovery organizations and food recovery services are not commercial edible food generators.

(k) "Community composting" means any activity that composts green material, agricultural material, food material, and vegetative food material, alone or in combination, and the total amount of feedstock and compost on-site at any one (1) time does not exceed one hundred (100) cubic yards and seven hundred fifty (750) square feet, as specified in 14 CCR Section 17855(a)(4); or, as otherwise defined by 14 CCR Section 18982(a)(8).

(l) "Compactor" means a mechanical apparatus that compresses materials together with the container that holds the compressed materials or the container that holds the compressed material if it is detached from the mechanical compaction apparatus. Compactors include two (2) to four (4) cubic yard bin compactors serviced by front-end loader collection vehicles and ten (10) to fifty (50) cubic yard drop box compactors serviced by roll-off collection vehicles.

(m) "Compost" has the same meaning as in 14 CCR Section 17896.2(a)(4), which stated, as of the effective date of this ordinance, that "compost" means the product resulting from the controlled biological decomposition of organic solid wastes that are source separated from the municipal solid waste stream, or which are separated at a centralized facility.

(n) "Compostable plastics" or "compostable plastic" means plastic materials that meet the ASTM D6400 standard for compostability, or as otherwise described in 14 CCR Section 18984.1(a)(1)(A) or 18984.2(a)(1)(C).

(o) "Containers" means carts, bins, compactors, and drop boxes.

(p) "Container contamination" or "contaminated container" means a container, regardless of color, that contains prohibited container contaminants, or as otherwise defined in 14 CCR Section 18982(a)(55).

(q) "Construction and demolition debris," or "C&D debris" means wood, wallboard, ferrous and non-ferrous metals, glass, any fibrous material (including paper, cardboard, newspaper), plastic, concrete, and other recyclable materials and solid waste, including discarded building materials, packaging, debris, and rubble resulting from or generated by construction, alteration, remodeling, repair, demolition, or post-disaster operations at residential, commercial and industrial premises, excluding excluded waste.

(r) "County" means the unincorporated area of the county of Sonoma.

(s) "Curb (or curbside)" means the location of a container for pick-up, where such container is placed on the street or alley against the face of the curb, or where no curb exists, the container is placed not more than five feet (5') from the outside edge of the street or alley nearest the property's entrance; or alternate location designated by the county for flagship lots and other special circumstances.

(t) "Customer" means the person whom contractor submits billing invoice to and collects payment from for collection services provided to a premises. The customer may be either the occupant or owner of the premises.

(u) "Department" means the county of Sonoma, transportation and public works department.

(v) "Designated waste" means non-hazardous waste which may pose special disposal problems because of its potential to contaminate the environment and which may be disposed of only in class II disposal sites or class III disposal sites pursuant to variance issued by the California Department of Health Services.

(w) "Disposal or dispose (or variation thereof)" means the final disposition of solid waste at a disposal site.

(x) "Disposal site" means a facility for ultimate disposal of solid waste.

(y) "Drop box" means an open-top container or debris box with a capacity of ten (10) to fifty (50) cubic yards that is serviced by a roll-off collection vehicle.

(z) "Edible food" means food intended for human consumption, or as otherwise defined in 14 CCR Section 18982(a)(18). For the purposes of this ordinance or as otherwise defined in 14 CCR Section 18982(a)(18), "Edible food" is not solid waste if it is recovered and not discarded. Nothing in this ordinance or in 14 CCR, Division 7, Chapter 12 requires or authorizes the recovery of edible food that does not meet the food safety requirements of the California Retail Food Code.

(aa) "Excluded waste" means hazardous substances, hazardous waste, infectious waste, designated waste, volatile, corrosive, biomedical, infectious, biohazardous, and toxic substances or material. It also includes waste that a franchisee or other authorized collection enterprise reasonably believes would, as a result of or upon disposal, be a violation of local, state or federal law, regulation or ordinance, including land use restrictions or conditions, waste that cannot be disposed of in class III landfills, waste that in the opinion of the county franchisee or other authorized collection enterprise would present a significant risk to human health or the environment, cause a nuisance or otherwise create or expose such enterprise or county to potential liability.

(bb) "Food distributor" means a company that distributes food to entities including, but not limited to, supermarkets and grocery stores, or as otherwise defined in 14 CCR Section 18982(a)(22).

(cc) "Food facility" has the same meaning as in Section 113789 of the Health and Safety Code.

(dd) "Food recovery" means actions to collect and distribute food for human consumption that otherwise would be disposed, or as otherwise defined in 14 CCR Section 18982(a)(24).

(ee) "Food recovery organization" means an entity that engages in the collection or receipt of edible food from commercial edible food generators and distributes that edible food to the public for food recovery either directly or through other entities or as otherwise defined in 14 CCR Section 18982(a)(25), including, but not limited to:

(1) A food bank as defined in Section 113783 of the Health and Safety Code;

(2) A nonprofit charitable organization as defined in Section 113841 of the Health and Safety code; and,

(3) A nonprofit charitable temporary food facility as defined in Section 113842 of the Health and Safety Code.

A food recovery organization is not a commercial edible food generator for the purposes of this ordinance and implementation of 14 CCR, Division 7, Chapter 12 pursuant to 14 CCR Section 18982(a)(7).If the definition in 14 CCR Section 18982(a)(25) for Food Recovery Organization differs from this definition, the definition in 14 CCR Section 18982(a)(25) shall apply to this ordinance.

(ff) "Food recovery service" means a person or entity that collects and transports edible food from a commercial edible food generator to a food recovery organization or other entities for food recovery, or as otherwise defined in 14 CCR Section 18982(a)(26). A food recovery service is not a commercial edible food generator for the purposes of this ordinance and implementation of 14 CCR, Division 7, Chapter 12 pursuant to 14 CCR Section 18982(a)(7).

(gg) "Food scraps" means all food such as, but not limited to, fruits, vegetables, meat, poultry, seafood, shellfish, bones, rice, beans, pasta, bread, cheese, and eggshells. Food scraps excludes fats, oils, and grease when such materials are source separated from other food scraps.

(hh) "Food service provider" means an entity primarily engaged in providing food services to institutional, governmental, commercial, or industrial locations of others based on contractual arrangements with these types of organizations, or as otherwise defined in 14 CCR Section 18982(a)(27).

(ii) "Food-soiled paper" is compostable paper material that has come in contact with food or liquid, such as, but not limited to, compostable paper plates, paper coffee cups, napkins, pizza boxes, and milk cartons.

(jj) "Food waste" means food scraps, food-soiled paper, and compostable plastics.

(kk) "Franchisee(s)" or "county franchisee(s)" means the party or parties that have entered into a franchise agreement with the county that remains in effect for solid waste, recyclable materials, organics or C&D debris collection services in the unincorporated area of the county. Such franchise agreements may or may not be exclusive as to certain materials.

(ll) "Gray container" means a container where either: (A) The lid of the container is gray or black in color, or (B) the body of the container is entirely gray or black in color and the lid is gray or black in color. The grey container shall be used exclusively for the purpose of storage and collection of solid waste.

(mm) "Green container" means a container where either: (A) The lid of the container is green in color, or (B) The body of the container is green in color and the lid is green, gray, or black in color. The green container shall be used exclusively for the purpose of storage and collection of source separated organic waste.

(nn) "Generator" means any person whose act or process produces solid waste, recyclable materials, organics or C&D debris as defined herein, or whose act first causes any such material to become subject to regulation.

(oo) "Hauler" means a person who collects material from a generator and delivers it to a reporting entity, end user, or a destination. "Hauler" includes public contract haulers, private contract haulers, food waste self-haulers, and self-haulers. A person who transports material from a reporting entity to another person is a transporter, not a hauler.

(pp) "Hazardous substance" means any of the following: (a) any substances defined, regulated or listed (directly or by reference) as "hazardous substances", "hazardous materials", "hazardous wastes", "toxic waste", "pollutant", or "toxic substances" or similarly identified as hazardous to human health or the environment, in or pursuant to (i) the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) of 1980, 42 USC §9601 et seq. (CERCLA); (ii) the Hazardous Materials Transportation Act, 49 USC §1802, et seq.; (iii) the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, 42 USC §1609 et seq.; (iv) the Clean Water Act, 33 USC §1251 et seq.; (v) California Health and Safety Code §25115- 25117, 25249.8,25281, and 25316; (vi) the Clean Air Act, 42 USC §7901 et seq.; an (vii) California Water Code §13050; (b) any amendments, rules or regulations promulgated there under to such enumerated statuses or acts currently existing or hereafter enacted; and (c) any other hazardous or toxic substance, material, chemical, waste or pollutant identified as hazardous or toxic or regulated under any other applicable law currently existing or hereinafter enacted, including, without limitation, friable asbestos, polychlorinated biphenyl's ("PCBs"), petroleum, natural gas and synthetic fuel products, and by-products.

(qq) "Hazardous waste" means all substances defined as hazardous waste, acutely hazardous waste, or extremely hazardous waste by the State of California in Health and Safety Code Sections 25110.02, 25115, and 25117 or in the future amendments to or recodifications of such statutes or identified and listed as Hazardous Waste by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), pursuant to the Federal Resources Conservation and Recovery Act (42 USC §6901 et seq.), all future amendments thereto, and all rules and regulations promulgated thereunder.

(rr) "Household hazardous waste" means hazardous waste generated at residential premises within the county.

(ss) "Infectious waste" means biomedical waste generated at hospitals, public or private medical clinics, dental offices, research laboratories, pharmaceutical industries, blood banks, mortuaries, veterinary facilities and other similar establishments that are identified in Health and Safety Code Section 25117.5 as it may be amended from time to time.

(tt) "Inspection" means a site visit where the county or its delegate reviews records, containers, and an entity's collection, handling, recycling, or landfill disposal of organic waste or edible food handling to determine if the entity is complying with requirements set forth in this chapter.

(uu) "Local enforcement agency" means the County of Sonoma Department of Health Services, Environmental Health Division, which has been so designated by the board of supervisors and certified by the California Department of Resources, Recycling, and Recovery (CalRecycle).

(vv) "Multi-family" means any residential premises, other than a single-family premises, with five (5) or more dwelling units used for residential purposes (regardless of whether residence therein in temporary or permanent) and which receive centralized collection service for all units on the premises with billing to one (1) customer at one (1) address.

(ww) "Nuisance," as used in this chapter, means any activity that meets the following criteria: (1) is injurious to human health or is indecent or offensive to the senses and interferes with the comfortable enjoyment of life or property; (2) affects an entire community or neighborhood or a considerable number of persons; and (3) occurs as a result of the storage, removal, transport, processing or disposal of solid waste, organic waste or recycled materials in violation of this chapter.

(xx) "Occupant" means the person who occupies a premises.

(yy) "Organics" or "organic waste" means solid wastes containing material originated from living organisms and their metabolic waste products, including but not limited to food, green material, landscape and pruning waste, organic textiles and carpets, lumber, wood, paper products, printing and writing paper, manure, biosolids, digestate, and sludges. Biosolids and digestate are as defined by 14 CCR Section 18982(a). Organic waste does not include excluded waste.

(zz) "Owner" means the person(s) holding legal title to rent property and/or any improvements thereon, and shall include the person(s) listed on the latest equalized assessment roll of the county assessor.

(aaa) "Paper products" means paper janitorial supplies, cartons, wrapping, packaging, file folders, hanging files, corrugated boxes, tissue, and toweling, or as otherwise defined in 14 CCR Section 18982(a)(51).

(bbb) "Printing and writing paper" means copy, xerographic, watermark, cotton fiber, offset, forms, computer printout paper, white wove envelopes, manila envelopes, book paper, note pads, writing tablets, newsprint, and other uncoated writing papers, posters, index cards, calendars, brochures, reports, magazines, and publications, or as otherwise defined in 14 CCR Section 18982(a)(54).

(ccc) "Person(s)" means any individual, firm, association, organization, partnership, corporation, trust, joint venture, or public entity.

(ddd) "Premises" means any land or building in the county where solid waste, recyclable materials, yard trimmings, organics or C&D are generated or accumulated.

(eee) "Processing" means to prepare, treat, or convert through some special method.

(fff) "Prohibited container contaminants" means the following: (i) discarded materials placed in the blue container that are not identified as acceptable source separated recyclable materials pursuant to Section 22-4(c); (ii) discarded materials placed in the green container that are not identified as acceptable source separated organic waste pursuant to Section 22-4(c); (iii) discarded materials placed in the gray container that are acceptable source separated recyclable materials and/or source separated organic wastes that may be placed in the green container and/or blue container; (iv) ashes, industrial wastes, abandoned vehicles and parts thereof, discarded home and industrial appliances, dewatered, treated, or chemically fixed sewage sludge or manure placed in any Container; and (v) excluded waste placed in any container.

(ggg) "Recyclable materials or recyclables" means those discarded materials that are capable of being recycled and that exclude excluded waste. No discarded materials shall be considered recyclable materials unless such material is separated from solid waste, organic waste and C&D. Recyclable materials shall include, but not be limited to: newspaper (including inserts, coupons, and store advertisements); mixed paper (including office paper, computer paper, magazines, junk mail, catalogs, brown paper bags, brown paper, paperboard, paper egg cartons, telephone books, grocery bags, colored paper, construction paper, writing paper, envelopes, legal pad backings, shoe boxes, cereal and other similar food boxes yet excluding contaminated paper tissues, paper towels, paper with plastic coating, paper contaminated with food, wax paper, foil-lined paper, Tyvek non-tearing paper envelopes); chipboard; corrugated cardboard; glass containers of any color (including brown, clear, and green glass bottles and jars); aluminum (including beverage containers, small pieces of scrap metal); steel, tin or bi-metal cans; mixed rigid plastics such as plastic container (no. 1 to 7) and bottles including containers made of HDPE, LDPE, or PET. For the purposes of Chapter 22, "recyclable materials" shall not include C&D materials. "Recyclable materials" shall also exclude source-separated organic waste, except as materials specifically included in this definition of "recyclable materials" are compostable products acceptable in either the blue container or green container pursuant to Section 22-4(c) of this chapter.

(hhh) "Recycle" or "recycling" means the process of sorting, cleansing, treating and reconstituting at a recyclable materials processing site materials that would otherwise be disposed of at a landfill for the purpose of returning such materials to the economy in the form of raw materials for new, reused, or reconstituted products.

(iii) "Remote monitoring" means the use of wireless electronic devices to visualize the contents of blue containers, green containers, and gray containers for purposes of identifying the quantity of materials in containers (level of fill) and/or presence of prohibited container contaminants.

(jjj) "Residential" shall mean of, from, or pertaining to a single-family premises or multi-family premises including single-family homes, apartments, condominiums, townhouse complexes, mobile home parks, and cooperative apartments.

(kkk) "SB 1383" means Senate Bill 1383 of 2016 approved by the Governor on September 19, 2016, which added Sections 39730.5, 39730.6, 39730.7, and 39730.8 to the Health and Safety Code, and added Chapter 13.1 (commencing with Section 42652) to Part 3 of Division 30 of the Public Resources Code, establishing methane emissions reduction targets in a statewide effort to reduce emissions of short-lived climate pollutants as amended, supplemented, superseded, and replaced from time to time.

(lll) "SB 1383 regulations" means or refers to, for the purposes of this ordinance, the Short-Lived Climate Pollutants: Organic Waste Reduction regulations developed by CalRecycle and adopted in 2020 that created 14 CCR, Division 7, Chapter 12 and amended portions of regulations of 14 CCR and 27 CCR.

(mmm) "Self-hauler" means a person who hauls organic waste he or she has generated to another person. Self-hauler also includes a person who back-hauls organic waste. Back-haul means generating and transporting organic waste to a destination owned and operated by the generator using the generator's own employees and equipment.

(nnn) "Single-family" means, notwithstanding any contrary definition in the county code, any detached or attached house or residence designed or used for occupancy by one (1) family, provided that collection service feasibly can be provided to such premises directly or via an adjacent unit, and the owner or occupant of such independent unit is billed directly for the collection service. Single-family also include residential units of a duplex or tri-plex residential structure.

(ooo) "Solid waste" means solid waste as defined in California Public Resources Code Section 40191 and regulations promulgated thereunder, which define solid waste as all putrescible and nonputrescible solid, semisolid, and liquid wastes, including garbage, trash, refuse, paper, rubbish, ashes, industrial wastes, abandoned vehicles and parts thereof, discarded home and industrial appliances, dewatered, treated, or chemically fixed sewage sludge which is not hazardous waste, manure, vegetable or animal solid and semi-solid wastes, and other discarded solid and semisolid wastes. Excluded from the definition of solid waste is excluded waste, C&D debris, source separated (i.e., separated by the generator) recyclable materials, source separated organics, radioactive waste and infectious waste.

(ppp) "Source separated" means separated from solid waste (or from other categories of discarded materials defined in this Chapter 22), at the point of generation, for separate collection, for the purpose of additional sorting or processing those materials for recycling or reuse in order to return them to the economic mainstream in the form of raw material for new, reused, or reconstituted products. For the purposes of the ordinance, source separated shall include separation of materials by the generator, property owner, property owner's employee, property manager, or property manager's employee into different containers for the purpose of collection such that source separated materials are separated from solid waste for the purposes of collection and processing.

(qqq) "Transfer station" means those facilities utilized to receive solid wastes, temporarily store, separate, convert, or otherwise process the materials in the solid wastes, or to transfer the solid wastes directly from smaller to larger vehicles for transport, and those facilities utilized for transformation, which for the purposes of this ordinance shall specifically include but is not limited to those certain county-owned transfer stations which are commonly known as the central transfer station; the Annapolis transfer station; the Guerneville transfer station; the Healdsburg transfer station; and the Sonoma transfer station. The transfer stations expressly exclude closed county landfills. For this purposes of this chapter, "transfer station" shall exclude those facilities and operations that are specifically excluded from the definition of a "transfer station" under Public Resources Code section 40200.

(rrr) "Transportation" or "transport" means the act of transporting or state of being transported.

(sss) "Supermarket" means a full-line, self-service retail store with gross annual sales of two million dollars ($2,000,000.00), or more, and which sells a line of dry grocery, canned goods, or nonfood items and some perishable items, or as otherwise defined in 14 CCR Section 18982(a)(71).

(ttt) "Tier One commercial edible food generator" means a commercial edible food generator that is one (1) of the following:

(1) Supermarket.

(2) Grocery store with a total facility size equal to or greater than ten thousand (10,000) square feet.

(3) Food service provider.

(4) Food distributor.

(5) Wholesale food vendor.

(uuu) "Tier Two commercial edible food generator" means a commercial edible food generator that is one (1) of the following:

(1) Restaurant with two hundred fifty (250) or more seats, or a total facility size equal to or greater than five thousand (5,000) square feet.

(2) Hotel with an on-site food facility and two hundred (200) or more rooms.

(3) Health facility with an on-site food facility and one hundred (100) or more beds.

(4) Large venue.

(5) Large event.

(vvv) "Wholesale food vendor" means a business or establishment engaged in the merchant wholesale distribution of food, where food (including fruits and vegetables) is received, shipped, stored, prepared for distribution to a retailer, warehouse, distributor, or other destination.

(www) "Yard trimmings" means tree trimmings, grass cuttings, plant materials, leaves, branches, and dead trees (not more than four inches (4") in diameter) and similar yard debris.

(Ord. No. 6361, § II(Exh. A), 11-16-2021)