Glossary
Explore terms related to landfills and the environment.
Municipal solid waste landfills
These landfills receive household waste and may receive commercial and industrial nonhazardous waste.
The Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program
This program of the Environmental Protection Agency requires facilities to report their emissions if they meet a certain emissions threshold. This requirement applies to approximately 8,000 facilities in the U.S.
Methane
Methane is one kind of greenhouse gas. The process of organic matter decomposing in solid waste landfills is one way methane is produced.
Enforcement Actions
Facilities with violations may receive “enforcement actions” from the EPA, which encourage facilities to comply with safety standards set to protect the environment and public health.
Informal Enforcement Actions
These include statements that a facility has a potential violation or confirmed violation, should take action to address the violation, a timeframe for the corrective measures, and potential repercussions if the violation isn’t addressed. These are typically issued for relatively lower-risk violations and then filed in a national database.
Formal Enforcement Actions
These are issued as a result of a confirmed violation or endangerment and can result in more serious consequences for violating facilities. According to the EPA, the regulatory agency may impose or seek through a court or other tribunal a penalty or injunctive relief for the violation, obtain compliance, or abate the endangerment.
Environmental Justice Communities
The EPA measures areas of environmental justice concern by identifying groups with the highest intersection of low-income populations, people of color, and a given environmental indicator, such as ozone level in the air.
Environmental Justice Indicators
The EPA measures levels of concern for environmental justice in certain communities. It uses environmental indicators in its formula, which include 13 indicators: Particulate matter 2.5, ozone, diesel particulate matter, air toxins that increase cancer risk, air toxins that increase respiratory hazards, toxic releases into the air, traffic proximity and volume, lead paint, proximity to contaminated land sites, proximity to potential chemical accident management plan facilities, proximity to hazardous waste, underground storage tanks, including those that are leaking, and wastewater discharge.
All glossary definitions sourced from epa.gov.
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