Rhode Island Code of Regulations › Title 250 - Department of Environmental Management › Chapter 40 - Agriculture and Resource Marketing › Subchapter 20 - Marketing › Part 3 - Rules and Regulations for Agricultural Composting (250-RICR-40-20-3) › Section 250-RICR-40-20-3.4 - Definitions

Current through June 14, 2024
A. "Agricultural by-product" means discarded
				  organic materials produced from the raising of plants and animals as part of
				  agronomic, horticultural or silvicultural operations, including but not limited
				  to animal manure, bedding materials, plant stalks, leaves, other vegetative
				  matter and discarded by-products from the on-farm processing of fruits and
				  vegetables.
B. "Agricultural
				  composting" means the composting of agricultural by-products and other organic
				  materials on an agricultural unit resulting in compost products for
				  agricultural and horticultural uses.
C. "Agricultural composting facility" means
				  that part of an agricultural unit upon which agricultural composting takes
				  place. Permitting for agricultural composting facilities is done through the
				  Division of Agriculture in DEM/Bureau of Natural Resources.
D. "Agricultural unit" means farmland as
				  designated under R.I. Gen. Laws §
										44-27-2 upon which agricultural
				  operations as defined in R.I. Gen. Laws §
										2-23-4 are undertaken by a
				  farmer.
E. "Commonly accepted best
				  management practice" means the ability to produce the desired quality of
				  compost in the shortest possible time with a minimum of odors, environmental
				  impacts and other process-related problems, as stated in the On-Farm Composting
				  Handbook (NRAES-54, June 1992, ISBN: 0-935817-19-0) distributed by the Natural
				  Resource, Agriculture, and Engineering Service (NRAES), formerly known as the
				  Northeast Regional Agricultural Engineering Service.
F. "Compost" means a soil amending material
				  resulting from the aerobic thermophilic, microbial processing of organic
				  materials.
G. "Disposal" means the
				  abandonment, discard or final disposition of waste.
H. "Farmer" means an individual, partnership
				  or corporation who operates a farm, as defined by R.I. Gen. Laws Chapter 2-1
				  and meets the requirements of R.I. Gen. Laws §
										2-1-22(j).
I. "Mixed solid waste" means heterogeneous
				  and commingled solid waste, which may include readily biodegradable organic
				  wastes, as well as other organic wastes which are not readily biodegradable and
				  may also contain inorganic, non-compostable wastes.
J. "Organic material" means materials that
				  contain carbon-to-carbon bonds and are biodegradable, such as paper, wood, food
				  waste, leaves and yard waste.
K.
				  "Physical contaminants" means any non-biodegradable material such as plastic,
				  metal, glass, stones or masonry debris.
L. "Putrescible waste" means solid waste,
				  including but not limited to, fish waste and other food wastes, which contains
				  organic matter capable of being decomposed by microorganisms and that has a
				  tendency to form foul-smelling by-products during decomposition, and may
				  provide food for vectors or birds.
M. "Solid waste" means garbage, refuse and
				  other discarded solid materials generated by residential, institutional,
				  commercial, industrial and agricultural sources but does not include solids or
				  dissolved material in domestic sewage sludge, nor does it include hazardous
				  waste as defined in the Rhode Island Hazardous Waste Management Act, R.I. Gen.
				  Laws Chapter 23-19.1, nor does it include used asphalt, concrete, Portland
				  concrete cement or tree stumps.