Hazardous waste is waste that must be handled properly to avoid damaging human health or the environment. Waste can be hazardous because it is toxic, reacts violently with other chemicals, or is corrosive, among other traits. As of 2022, humanity produces 300-500 million metric tons of hazardous waste annually. Some common examples are electronics, batteries, and paints. An important aspect of managing hazardous waste is safe disposal. Hazardous waste can be stored in hazardous waste landfills, burned, or recycled into something new. Managing hazardous waste is important to achieve worldwide sustainability. Hazardous waste is regulated on national scale by national governments as well as on an international scale by the United Nations (UN) and international treaties.
Waste management or waste disposal includes the processes and actions required to manage waste from its inception to its final disposal. This includes the collection, transport, treatment, and disposal of waste, together with monitoring and regulation of the waste management process and waste-related laws, technologies, and economic mechanisms.
A landfill is a site for the disposal of waste materials. It is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of waste with daily, intermediate and final covers only began in the 1940s. In the past, waste was simply left in piles or thrown into pits.
Incineration is a waste treatment process that involves the combustion of substances contained in waste materials. Industrial plants for waste incineration are commonly referred to as waste-to-energy facilities. Incineration and other high-temperature waste treatment systems are described as "thermal treatment". Incineration of waste materials converts the waste into ash, flue gas and heat. The ash is mostly formed by the inorganic constituents of the waste and may take the form of solid lumps or particulates carried by the flue gas. The flue gases must be cleaned of gaseous and particulate pollutants before they are dispersed into the atmosphere. In some cases, the heat that is generated by incineration can be used to generate electric power.
Municipal solid waste (MSW), commonly known as trash or garbage in the United States and rubbish in Britain, is a waste type consisting of everyday items that are discarded by the public. "Garbage" can also refer specifically to food waste, as in a garbage disposal; the two are sometimes collected separately. In the European Union, the semantic definition is 'mixed municipal waste,' given waste code 20 03 01 in the European Waste Catalog. Although the waste may originate from a number of sources that has nothing to do with a municipality, the traditional role of municipalities in collecting and managing these kinds of waste have produced the particular etymology 'municipal.'
Waste Management, Inc., doing business as WM, is a waste management, comprehensive waste, and environmental services company operating in North America. Founded in 1968, the company is headquartered in the Bank of America Tower in Houston, Texas.
Browning-Ferris Industries was a North American waste management company that was bought out in 1999.
The Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio (SWACO) was established by the Ohio General Assembly in 1989 as part of Ohio House Bill 592, which created Ohio’s current solid waste management planning and regulatory programs. SWACO is a government-run entity responsible for the safe and sanitary management of all solid waste within its district. In this role, it operates the Franklin County Sanitary Landfill, as well as two transfer facilities, all for the benefit of Franklin County, Ohio, and parts of surrounding counties in central Ohio.
Plasma gasification is an extreme thermal process using plasma which converts organic matter into a syngas which is primarily made up of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. A plasma torch powered by an electric arc is used to ionize gas and catalyze organic matter into syngas, with slag remaining as a byproduct. It is used commercially as a form of waste treatment, and has been tested for the gasification of refuse-derived fuel, biomass, industrial waste, hazardous waste, and solid hydrocarbons, such as coal, oil sands, petcoke and oil shale.
Veolia Environmental Services, formerly Onyx Environnement, is a division of Veolia Environnement. It employs nearly 78,000 staff, has operations in 35 countries around the world, and generated revenues of nearly €9.02 billion in 2009.
Casella Waste Systems, Inc. is a waste management company based in Rutland, Vermont, United States. Founded in 1975 with a single truck, Casella is a regional, vertically integrated solid waste services company. Casella provides resource management expertise and services to residential, commercial, municipal and industrial customers, primarily in the areas of solid waste collection and disposal, transfer, recycling and organics services. The company provides integrated solid waste services in seven northeastern states: Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine and Pennsylvania, with its headquarters located in Rutland, Vermont. Casella manages solid waste operations on a geographic basis through two regional operating segments, the Eastern and Western regions, each of which provides a full range of solid waste services, and larger-scale recycling and commodity brokerage operations. Organics services, major account and industrial services, are also provided.
Waste Connections of Canada Inc., formerly Progressive Waste Solutions, is a waste collection company, that provides non-hazardous solid waste collection, recycling, composting, renewable energy, and landfill disposal services to commercial, industrial, municipal, and residential customers throughout the United States and Canada. The company is based in Toronto, and its headquarters in the United States is in The Woodlands, Texas.
Republic Services, Inc. is a North American waste disposal company whose services include non-hazardous solid waste collection, waste transfer, waste disposal, recycling, and energy services. It is the second largest provider of waste disposal in the United States after Waste Management.
Waste are unwanted or unusable materials. Waste is any substance discarded after primary use, or is worthless, defective and of no use. A by-product, by contrast is a joint product of relatively minor economic value. A waste product may become a by-product, joint product or resource through an invention that raises a waste product's value above zero.
Demolition waste is waste debris from destruction of buildings, roads, bridges, or other structures. Debris varies in composition, but the major components, by weight, in the US include concrete, wood products, asphalt shingles, brick and clay tile, steel, and drywall. There is the potential to recycle many elements of demolition waste.
Municipal solid waste (MSW) – more commonly known as trash or garbage – consists of everyday items people use and then throw away, such as product packaging, grass clippings, furniture, clothing, bottles, food scraps and papers. In 2018, Americans generated about 265.3 million tonnes of waste. In the United States, landfills are regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the states' environmental agencies. Municipal solid waste landfills (MSWLF) are required to be designed to protect the environment from contaminants that may be present in the solid waste stream.
Clean Harbors, Inc. is an American provider of environmental and industrial services, including hazardous waste disposal for companies, small waste generators and federal, state, provincial and local governments.
Solid waste policy in the United States is aimed at developing and implementing proper mechanisms to effectively manage solid waste. For solid waste policy to be effective, inputs should come from stakeholders, including citizens, businesses, community-based organizations, non-governmental organizations, government agencies, universities, and other research organizations. These inputs form the basis of policy frameworks that influence solid waste management decisions. In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates household, industrial, manufacturing, and commercial solid and hazardous wastes under the 1976 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). Effective solid waste management is a cooperative effort involving federal, state, regional, and local entities. Thus, the RCRA's Solid Waste program section D encourages the environmental departments of each state to develop comprehensive plans to manage nonhazardous industrial and municipal solid waste. Each state will have different methods on how to educate and control the flow of waste
Waste management in Russia refers to the legislation, actions and processes pertaining to the management of the various waste types encountered throughout the Russian Federation. The basis of legal governance for waste management in Russia at the federal level is outlined through Federal Law No. 89-FZ, which defines waste as “the remains of raw materials, materials, semi-finished products, other articles or products that have been formed in the process of production or consumption as well as the goods (products) that have lost their consumer properties”.
The cement industry in the United States produced 82.8 million tonnes of cement in 2015, worth US$9.8 billion, and was used to manufacture concrete worth about US$50 billion. The US was the world's third-largest producer of cement, after China and India. The US cement industry includes 99 cement mills in 34 states, plus two plants in Puerto Rico. The industry directly employed 10,000 workers in 2015. Ten percent of the cement used in the United States in 2015 was imported.
