Beneficial Use

Beneficial use is the productive use of water or solid material that is normally discarded or disposed of in a landfill or burned.

Throughout the years, more materials that have been disposed of in the past are finding new demands and uses. Economics have shifted to make these products more valuable for beneficial use. The U.S. environmental laws and regulations in the 1970s established national policies to search for ways to recycle society's discarded products. The National Resource Recovery Act of 1975 and the Clean Water Act of 1972 set goals for the beneficial use of solid waste, wastewater, and biosolids , and the National Environment Policy Act of 1969 required public agencies to include beneficial use in decision making.

Wastewater from treatment plants is becoming more valuable in water-short areas of the country such as California. It is used for the irrigation of agricultural crops or residential landscaping as an alternative to the use of water that is normally reserved for drinking. Biosolids are being recycled as an alternative to commercial fertilizers. Used soda bottles are turned into fence posts and clothing. Dredge spoils are no longer disposed of in deep-water areas, but instead are used as a resource for a variety of beneficial purposes, including beach nourishment, construction fill, landscaping, and landfill cover.

see also Biosolids; Dredging.

Internet Resource

Northeast Waste Management Officials' Association. "Beneficial Use of Waste Materials." Available from http://www.newmoa.org/Newmoa.

Peter S. Machno

BENEFICIAL USE

A right to utilize real property, including light, air, and access to it, in any lawful manner to gain a profit, advantage, or enjoyment from it. A right to enjoy real orpersonal propertyheld by a person who has equitable title to it while legal title is held by another.

A beneficial use involves greater rights than a mere right to possession of land, since it extends to the light and air over the land and access to it, which can be infringed by the beneficial use of other property by another owner. If a dispute arises from the conflicting ways in which two adjoining landowners exercise their respective beneficial uses of their property, a court, exercising its discretion, may adjudicate those rights.

A beneficiary of a trust has beneficial use of the trust property, the legal title to which is held by the trustee.