In this article, unless the context otherwise requires:

1. "Agency" means this state or a state agency, county, municipality or political subdivision.

2. "Collection" means the act of picking up post-consumer secondary materials from homes, businesses, governmental agencies, institutions or industrial sites.

3. "Consumer" means a person who purchases a product for use, consumption or any purpose other than resale.

4. "Municipal or county solid waste" means any garbage, trash, rubbish, refuse, sludge from a waste treatment plant, water supply treatment plant or pollution control facility and other discarded material, including solid, liquid, semisolid or contained gaseous material but not including domestic sewage or hazardous waste.

5. "Municipality" means an incorporated city or town with a population of more than five thousand persons.

6. "Natural resources" means the supply of materials, not made by man, that are used for making goods.

7. "Paper" means newspaper, high grade office paper, fine paper, bond paper, offset paper, xerographic paper, duplicator paper and related types of cellulosic material containing not more than ten percent by weight or volume of noncellulosic material such as laminates, binders, coatings or saturants.

8. "Plastic container" means a container that is hermetically sealed or made airtight with a metal or plastic cap with a minimum wall thickness of not less than 0.010 inches and that is composed of thermoplastic synthetic polymeric materials.

9. "Plastics" means a specific polymer or mix of polymers in combination with various amounts of plasticizers, stabilizers, colorants, fillers and other organic and inorganic compounds.

10. "Post-consumer material":

(a) Means a discard generated by a business or residence that has fulfilled its useful life.

(b) Includes discards from industrial or manufacturing processes.

11. "Process" or "processing" means the reduction, separation, recovery, conversion or recycling of solid waste.

12. "Recyclable material" means post-consumer materials that may be collected, separated, cleansed, treated or reconstituted and returned to the economic stream in the form of raw materials or products.

13. "Recycled" means a process by which post-consumer materials are collected, separated, cleansed, treated or reconstituted and returned to the economic stream in the form of raw materials or products.

14. "Recycled materials" means those materials that have been separated from the municipal or county solid waste stream, processed and returned to the economic stream in the form of raw materials or products.

15. "Recycling" means the process of collecting, separating, cleansing, treating and reconstituting post-consumer materials that would otherwise become solid waste and returning them to the economic stream in the form of raw material for reconstituted products that meet the quality standards necessary to be used in the marketplace, but does not include incineration or other similar processes.

16. "Recycling program" means the program prepared and adopted by this state and approved by the department to implement the recycling program goals of this state or a program prepared and adopted by a county or municipality of this state.

17. "Reuse" means the return of a commodity into the economic stream for use in the same kind of application as before without change in its identity.

18. "Source reduction" means any action that causes a net reduction in the generation of solid waste and includes reducing the use of nonrecyclable materials, replacing disposable materials and products with reusable materials and products, reducing packaging, reducing the amount of yard waste generated, establishing garbage rate structures with incentives to reduce the amount of wastes that generators produce and increasing the efficiency of the use of paper, cardboard, glass, metal, plastic and other materials in the manufacturing process. Source reduction does not include the following:

(a) Steps taken after the material becomes solid waste or actions that would impact air or water resources in lieu of land, such as incineration or pyrolysis or burning for energy recovery.

(b) Replacing disposable material or products with alternative disposable materials or products.

19. "Storage" means the containment or holding of materials, either on a temporary or long-term basis, in such a manner as not to constitute disposal of such materials.

20. "Used oil" means any oil that has been refined from crude or synthetic oil and, as a result of use, storage or handling, that has become unsuitable for its original purpose due to the presence of impurities or loss of original properties but that may be suitable for further use and may be economically recyclable.

21. "Waste generator" means a person, business, government agency or other organization that produces solid waste.

22. "Waste stream" means the solid waste material output of a community, region or facility.

23. "Waste tire" means a tire that is no longer suitable for its original intended purpose because of wear, damage or defect.

24. "Wastepaper" means recyclable paper and paperboard, including high grade office paper, computer paper, fine paper, bond paper, offset paper, xerographic paper, duplicator paper and corrugated paper.