Storage at the source: Accumulation of solid waste, immediately upon its generation.
Collection centers (Centros de acopio): Places for the storage, classification, or packing of recoverable waste, under hygienic conditions that do not endanger human health or contaminate the environment. They must have sanitary infrastructure that allows employees to maintain commonly accepted standards of personal hygiene and occupational health.
Sustainable consumption: Acquiring products in a moderate and responsible manner so as to achieve a reduction in the population's level of consumption.
Environmental education: The process of recognizing values and clarifying concepts to create necessary skills and attitudes, aimed at understanding and appreciating the mutual relationship between man, his culture, and the surrounding biophysical environment; therefore, environmental education is a continuous process in which individuals and the community become aware of their environment and acquire the values, competencies, and will to enable them to act in solving current and future environmental problems.
Delivery of solid waste with primary separation: Action by which the waste generator, after primary separation and storage, places the solid waste properly packaged so that waste collection can be carried out without difficulty.
Delivery of solid waste without primary separation: Action by which the waste generator, without previously performing primary separation and storage, places the solid waste properly packaged so that waste collection can be carried out without difficulty.
Source of waste generation: Site where waste is generated, for example, homes, industries, schools, businesses, universities, among others.
Generators of solid waste: Any person, institution, business, industry, among others, that generates solid waste.
Comprehensive management (gestión integral) of solid waste: Set of activities of the solid waste service at the family, institutional, or industrial level to deliver, store, collect, and recover solid waste with the objective of reducing waste generation to a maximum, maximizing its recovery, reducing management costs, minimizing the amount of garbage, as well as avoiding nuisances and damage to the well-being of people or the environment.
Discriminated management of waste: Set of actions aimed at storing, collecting, and treating solid waste classified according to its physical and chemical nature and according to the conveniences for its commercialization or industrialization.
Responsible management of final disposal systems: Ensuring that sanitary landfills or other final disposal systems comply with the requirements that guarantee the protection of the environment and public health.
Special rules (Normas especiales): Specific regulations for the management of certain specific wastes.
Environmental education plan: Work guide aimed at educating, training, and raising awareness among the population on the topic of adequate and responsible solid waste management.
Persons providing the solid waste service: all those natural or legal persons authorized by the municipality to provide any of the activities of the solid waste service in the canton.
Recycled products: Materials that are processed to be incorporated again as a new product or to give a new utility.
Recycling: Reuse of solid waste as raw material in industrial processes.
Collection of solid waste: Service of transporting solid waste between primary or intermediate storage and composting plants or collection centers (centros de acopio) or recovery industries or the final disposal of non-recoverable solid waste in technical deposits.
Recoverable waste (Residuos aprovechables): Solid waste that can be reincorporated into nature, or be reused by society, without harm to human health or the environment. Waste that, due to its composition, allows rescuing some economic value or being used as raw material in industrial processes: for example, paper, glass, aluminum, and PET.
Non-recoverable waste (Residuos no aprovechables): Solid waste that at a social level lacks use value. All those wastes that do not allow rescuing any economic value or that cannot be reused. For example, used napkins, toilet paper, among others.
Non-traditional waste (Residuos no tradicionales): Are those comprised of durable objects and goods that have concluded their useful life cycle. Some examples are household appliances, furniture, old tires, bicycles, computers, among others.
Organic waste: Are biodegradable waste that can be used in the production of organic fertilizer or other reusable products, complying with the standards established at the national level and with those of these regulations. It refers to those that have not been manipulated by man.
Solid waste: Any object or material in a solid state or of pasty consistency, excluding animal or human excreta and sludge from wastewater treatment plants, biodigesters, and septic tanks, regardless of whether or not it has use value.
Commercial solid waste: those generated in commercial mercantile establishments.
Residential solid waste (Residuos sólidos domiciliar): Are those generated in dwelling houses as a product of daily family activities.
Industrial solid waste: Are those generated as a result of industrial and manufacturing processes.
Institutional solid waste: Are those generated in public or private institutions, excluding hospitals and air terminals.
Municipal solid waste: The portion of the waste stream that includes residential, commercial, municipal institutional, and some light industrial waste. It does not include hazardous, radioactive, medical, or large-volume industrial waste.
Biodegradable waste: Materials or waste that decompose in a shorter time period than others.
Reuse of waste: Giving a different use to materials or waste from that which they originally had.
Separation of waste at the source: Action of separating and properly packaging waste at the generating source into its main recoverable components, namely: paper, cardboard and derivatives, glass, plastics, aluminum cans, biodegradable waste, non-recoverable waste (residuos no aprovechables) or garbage, and others that technology makes possible to recover.
Solid waste service: Is the service that comprises the activities of collection, transportation, transfer, treatment, recovery, and final disposal.
Fee for municipal solid waste services (Tasa de los servicios de residuos sólidos municipales): Charge to the taxpayer according to the classification of generators for the solid waste activities during a monthly cycle or during a billing cycle.
Adequate treatment of solid waste: Process through which economic, environmental, and social benefits are obtained from responsible and correct waste management.
Municipal Powers and Obligations