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Answer
From: Fred Friedman (FRIEDMAN.FRED@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV)
Date: Tue Oct 20 1998 - 05:08:00 EDT 

Date: Tue, 20 Oct 98 10:08 WET DST
From: FRIEDMAN.FRED@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV (Fred Friedman)
Subject: Re: Litter vs. waste (Lisa Samstag)

Oct. 19, 1998

Dear Lisa Samstag,

The differentiation between the terms litter and waste are that litter is the far smaller category: it implies that someone dropped it in the environment, from a tire by the side of the road to a windblown newspaper, the sort of stuff which the organization Keep American Beautiful deals with.
Waste is the vaster category which takes in the municipal waste households throw away and sanitation trucks collect, destined not for recycling but for landfill or incinerator. It also takes in sludge from water or waste treatment plants, solid, semisolid and liquid wastes resulting from industrial, commercial, and agricultural operations. And it takes in other things including litter, as well.

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