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Business Taxes Law Guide—Revision 2024
Integrated Waste Management Fee Law
Public Resources Code
Relating to the Solid Waste Disposal Site Cleanup and Maintenance Fee Law
Division 30. Waste Management
Part 1. Integrated Waste Management
Chapter 1. General Provisions.
Article 1. Findings and Declarations
Article 2. General Provisions
(Note: For history of any of these sections see Public Resources Code, annotated published by Deering or West.)
Article 1. Findings and Declarations
40000. Legislative intent. The Legislature hereby finds and declares all of the following:
(a) In 1988, Californians disposed of over 38 million tons of solid waste, an amount that is expected to grow if existing solid waste policies are continued. This amounts to more than 1,500 pounds of waste per person living in the state, more than any other state in the country and over twice the per-capita rate of most other industrialized countries.
(b) Over 90 percent of California's solid waste currently is disposed of in landfills, some of which pose a threat to groundwater, air quality, and public health.
(c) While California will exhaust most of its remaining landfill space by the mid-1990s, there presently is no coherent state policy to ensure that the state's solid waste is managed in an effective and environmentally sound manner for the remainder of the 20th century and beyond.
(d) The amount of solid waste generated in the state coupled with diminishing landfill space and potential adverse environmental impacts from landfilling constitutes an urgent need for state and local agencies to enact and implement an aggressive new integrated waste management program.
(e) The reduction, recycling, or reuse of solid waste generated in the state will, in addition to preserving landfill capacity in California, serve to conserve water, energy, and other natural resources within this state, and to protect the state's environment.
40001. Responsibility. (a) The Legislature declares that the responsibility for solid waste management is a shared responsibility between the state and local governments. The state shall exercise its legal authority in a manner that ensures an effective and coordinated approach to the safe management of all solid waste generated within the state and shall oversee the design and implementation of local integrated waste management plans.
(b) The Legislature further declares that it is the policy of the state to assist local governments in minimizing duplication of effort, and in minimizing the costs incurred, in implementing this division through the development of regional cooperative efforts and other mechanisms which comply with this division.
(c) The Legislature further declares that market development is the key to successful and cost-effective implementation of the 25-percent and 50-percent diversion requirements required pursuant to Section 41780, and that the state must take a leadership role, pursuant to Chapter 1 (commencing with Section 42000) of Part 3, in encouraging the expansion of markets for recycled products by working cooperatively with the public, private, and nonprofit sectors.
40002. Local agency requirements. (a) As an essential part of the state's comprehensive program for solid waste management, and for the preservation of health and safety, and the well-being of the public, the Legislature declares that it is in the public interest for the state, as sovereign, to authorize and require local agencies, as subdivisions of the state, to make adequate provision for solid waste handling, both within their respective jurisdictions and in response to regional needs consistent with the policies, standards, and requirements of this division and all regulations adopted pursuant to this division. This division which authorizes and requires local agencies to provide adequate solid waste handling and services, and the actions of local agencies taken pursuant to this division, are intended to implement this state policy.
(b) The Legislature further declares that restrictions on the disposal of solid waste that discriminate on the basis of the place of origin of the waste are an obstacle to, and conflict with, statewide and regional policies to ensure adequate and appropriate capacity for solid waste disposal.
Article 2. General Provisions
40050. Title. This division shall be known and may be cited as the California Integrated Waste Management Act of 1989.
40051. Implementation requirements. In implementing this division, the board and local agencies shall do both of the following:
(a) Promote the following waste management practices in order of priority:
(1) Source reduction.
(2) Recycling and composting.
(3) Environmentally safe transformation and environmentally safe land disposal, at the discretion of the city or county.
(b) Maximize the use of all feasible source reduction, recycling, and composting options in order to reduce the amount of solid waste that must be disposed of by transformation and land disposal. For wastes that cannot feasibly be reduced at their source, recycled, or composted, the local agency may use environmentally safe transformation or environmentally safe land disposal, or both of those practices.
40052. Purpose. The purpose of this division is to reduce, recycle, and reuse solid waste generated in the state to the maximum extent feasible in an efficient and cost-effective manner to conserve water, energy and other natural resources, to protect the environment, to improve regulation of existing solid waste landfills, to ensure that new solid waste landfills are environmentally sound, to improve permitting procedures for solid waste management facilities, and to specify the responsibilities of local governments to develop and implement integrated waste management programs.