Code of Maine Rules
06 - DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
096 - DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION - GENERAL
Chapter 900 - BIOMEDICAL WASTE MANAGEMENT RULES
Section 096-900-6 - Definitions

A. Antineoplastic drug. "Antineoplastic drug" means any of the group of cytotoxic drugs used in the treatment of cancer.

B. Biologicals. "Biologicals" means preparations made from living organisms and their products, including serums, vaccines, antigens, and antitoxins.

C. Biomedical waste. "Biomedical waste" means a waste that may contain human pathogens of sufficient virulence and in sufficient concentrations that exposure to it by a susceptible host could result in disease. Biomedical waste is further defined in Section 7 of this rule.

D. Biomedical waste activity. "Biomedical waste activity" means the generation, handling, storage, transport, and treatment of biomedical waste.

E. Biomedical waste manifest. "Biomedical waste manifest" means the form used for identifying the quantity, composition, and the origin, routing, and destination of biomedical waste during its transportation from the point of generation to the point of off-site treatment.

F. Board. "Board" means Board of Environmental Protection.

G. Chemotherapy waste. "Chemotherapy waste" means all materials that have come in contact with and have no more than trace amounts of cytotoxic/antineoplastic agents.

H. Commissioner. "Commissioner" means the Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection.

I. Contaminated. "Contaminated" means soiled or made inferior or potentially infectious through physical contact or mixture with a biomedical waste.

J. Conveyance. "Conveyance" means any vehicle used for transportation on land, water or in the air. For the requirement that a transporter license be obtained, the term includes only the cargo-carrying portion of a conveyance. For the requirements of Section 14, the term includes the entire conveyance.

K. Cytotoxic drugs. "Cytotoxic drugs" means drugs that are toxic to living cells.

L. Department. "Department" means the Department of Environmental Protection, which includes the Commissioner and the Board.

M. Discharge. "Discharge" means any spilling, leaking, pumping, pouring, emitting, emptying or dumping.

N. Disinfect. "Disinfect" means to reduce the infectiousness of an object or material such that it poses virtually no risk of infection to those handling, or otherwise coming into contact with, the object or material.

O. Disposal. "Disposal" means the discharge of untreated biomedical waste into or on any land or water so that the biomedical waste or any constituent thereof may enter the environment or be emitted into the air or discharged into any waters, including ground waters. The Department prohibits the disposal of biomedical waste.

P. Existing facility. "Existing facility" means a biomedical waste transfer facility in existence on December 18, 1989 or a facility holding an air emission license for a Class VI B incinerator on December 18, 1989.

Q. Flood plain. "Flood plain" means the lowland and relatively flat areas adjoining inland and coastal waters, including flood prone areas of offshore islands, which are inundated by a flood that has 1% or greater chance of recurring in any year or a flood of a magnitude equaled or exceeded once in 100 years on the average.

R. Generator. "Generator" means any person or medical facility whose act or process produces biomedical waste in any quantity.

S. Generated Off Site. "Generated Off-Site" means biomedical waste accepted at a biomedical waste transfer or treatment facility that was not generated on-site.

T. Handle. "Handle" means to store, transfer, collect, separate, salvage, process, reduce, recover, incinerate, treat or dispose of.

U. Hazardous waste. "Hazardous waste" means material that is identified as hazardous waste under Chapter 850 of the Department's Hazardous Waste Management Rules.

V. Household. "Household" means single and multiple residential dwellings and includes hotels, motels and boarding homes.

W. Incineration. "Incineration" means a processing method using an engineered apparatus capable of withstanding heat and having as its purpose the efficient thermal oxidation and/or conversion of combustible material into noncombustible residues (ash) and product gases.

X. Infectious. "Infectious" means caused by or capable of being communicated by invasion and multiplication of microorganisms in body tissues; having the potential to transmit disease.

Y. Infectious agent. "Infectious agent" means a biological substance (such as a virus, bacterium or other biological organism) capable of causing disease or adverse health impacts in humans.

Z. Medical facility. "Medical facility" means any place where biomedical waste is generated, including, but not limited to: hospitals, ambulatory surgical centers, emergency medical service providers, offices and mobile units of health care providers including doctors and dentists, nursing homes, medical diagnostic laboratories, blood centers, pharmaceutical companies, research laboratories, health agencies, diet or health care clinics, offices of veterinarians, veterinary hospitals, and funeral homes and mortuaries.

AA. M.R.S.A. "M.R.S.A." means the Maine Revised Statutes Annotated.

BB. Municipality. "Municipality" means a city, town, or plantation or unorganized township.

CC. Off-Site. "Off-Site" describes a facility or area for the storage, handling or treatment of biomedical waste which is not on the generator's site (i.e., "on-site") or a facility or area which receives biomedical waste for storage or treatment which has not been generated "on-site" at that facility.

DD. On-Site. "On-Site" means the activity in question is taking place or exists at the same site. Two or more contiguous pieces of property owned by the same generator or facility owner are a single site for the purposes of this definition.

EE. Operator. "Operator" means any person who has care, charge or control of a biomedical waste transfer or treatment facility or conveyance. This person may be an agent, a lessee of the owner, or an independent contractor.

FF. Owner. "Owner" means any person who alone or in conjunction with others owns a conveyance used for the transport of biomedical waste or the real property upon which is located a biomedical waste facility subject to these rules.

GG. Pathological waste. "Pathological waste" means human tissues, organs, and anatomical parts including teeth, discarded from surgery, autopsy, obstetrical procedures, and laboratory procedures.

HH. Person. "Person" means any individual, partnership, association, firm, company, corporation, department, agency, group, municipality, state, country, other governmental unit, or any other entity responsible in any way for an activity subject to these rules.

II. Radioactive waste. "Radioactive waste" means any waste material which emits ionizing radiation spontaneously.

JJ. Saturated. "Saturated" means thoroughly soaked or dripping. For the purposes of this rule the term "saturated" refers to a waste, which at the time of generation, is soaked or dripping with human blood, blood products or body fluids.

KK. Sharps. "Sharps" means items which may cause puncture wounds or cuts including, but not limited to, hypodermic needles, syringes, scalpel blades, capillary tubes and lancets. Sharps are further identified in Section 7(A)(4) of this rule.

LL. Site. "Site" means the same or geographically contiguous property which may be divided by a public or private right-of-way, provided that the entrance and exit between the properties is at a crossroads intersection and access is by crossing as opposed to going along the right-of-way. Noncontiguous properties owned by the same person but connected by a right-of-way which he or she controls and to which the public does not have access is also considered site property.

MM. Site Location Law. "Site Location Law" means the Site Location of Development Law, 38M.R.S.A. Section481, et seq.

NN. Solid waste. "Solid waste" as defined in 38 M.R.S.A. Section1303-C(29) means useless, unwanted or discarded solid material with insufficient liquid content to be free flowing, including by way of example, and not by limitation to, rubbish, garbage, scrap materials, junk, refuse, inert fill material, and landscape refuse, but does not include hazardous waste, biomedical waste, septage or agricultural wastes.

OO. Special waste. "Special waste" as defined in 38 M.R.S.A., Section1303-C(34) means any solid waste generated by sources other than domestic and typical commercial establishments that exists in such an unusual quantity or in such a chemical or physical state, or any combination thereof, that may disrupt or impair effective waste management or threaten the public health, human safety or the environment and requires special handling, transportation and disposal procedures.

PP. Storage."Storage" means the containment of biomedical waste either on a temporary basis or for a period of years, in such a manner as not to constitute disposal of such wastes.

QQ. Substantial modification. "Substantial modification" means any change in size, volume handled or operation of a licensed facility which may pose a risk to health, safety, welfare or the environment which is significantly different in kind or degree from that posed by the facility without the modification, or may pose a significant risk which was not considered in the original application or is not addressed in the existing license.

RR. Transfer facility. "Transfer facility" means any transportation-related facility including loading docks, parking areas, storage areas and other similar areas where shipments of biomedical waste are held during the normal course of transportation.

SS. Transport. "Transport" means the movement of biomedical waste from the point of its generation to any intermediate points and finally to its point of ultimate disposition. Movement of biomedical waste on the site where it is generated or on the site of a licensed biomedical waste transfer or treatment facility is not "transport."

TT. Transporter. "Transporter" means any person who transports biomedical waste in this state in any quantity, unless exempt from the requirements of this rule pursuant to Section 4 of this rule. The term includes, without limitation, individuals who own, lease or otherwise control conveyances in which biomedical waste is transported, operators of such conveyances, and businesses regardless of size and form of business organization, which engage in transportation of biomedical waste.

UU. Transported Off-Site. "Transported Off-Site" means to be transported from the point of generation to a biomedical waste transfer or treatment facility that is not on the generator's site.

VV. Treatment. "Treatment" means any method, technique, or process designed to change the biological character or composition of biomedical waste so as to eliminate or reduce its potential for causing disease.

WW. Waste. "Waste" means any useless, unwanted or discarded substance or material, whether or not such substance or material has any other or future use and includes any substance or material that is spilled, leaked, pumped, poured, emitted, emptied or dumped onto the land or into the water or ambient air.