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- For other uses of the word, see Waste (disambiguation).
Waste, rubbish, trash, or garbage is unwanted or undesired material. See also municipal solid waste
Waste is something which has lost its apparent value to its owner. It is a misplaced resource.
Waste can exist in any phase of matter (solid, liquid, or gas). When released in the latter two states, gas especially, the wastes are referred to as emissions. It is usually strongly linked with pollution.
Sources of waste
Waste produced in the wild is reintegrated through natural recycling processes, such as dry leaves in a forest decomposing into soil. Outside of the wild these wastes may become problematic, such as dry leaves in an urban environment. The highest volume of waste, outside of nature, comes from human industrial activity: mining, industrial manufacturing, consumer use, and so on1.
Almost all manufactured products are destined to become waste at some point in time, with a volume of waste production roughly similar to the volume of resource consumption. Many manufactured goods are unable to be recycled due to the impracticality of separating the materials of glass, metal and plastic from each other, or the inability to separate the elements of a metal alloy back into its base components. This could create a logistical nightmare scenario in terms of how or where the various types of buildings (and the many contents they contain) of present day towns and cities will be disposed of in the distant future.
Post-consumer waste is the waste produced by the end-user (the rubbish one puts outside in the rubbish bin). This is the waste people usually think of. But though the most visible, this is very small compared to the waste created in the process of mining and production.
Human waste
Human waste is a term in the English language usually used to refer to byproducts of digestion, such as feces and urine. Human waste can be a serious health hazard, as it is a good vector for both viral and bacterial diseases. A major accomplishment of human civilization has been the reduction of disease transmission via human waste through the practice of hygiene and sanitation, including the development of theories of sewage systems and plumbing. Human waste can be reduced and reused through use of greywater, waterless urinals and humanure systems. The most common method of waste treatment in rural areas where municipal sewage systems are unavailable is the use of the septic system. In remote rural places without sewage or septic systems, small populations allow for the continued use of honey buckets and sewage lagoons (see: anaerobic lagoon) without the threat of disease presented by places with more dense populations. An example of honey bucket use is by rural villages in Alaska where, due to permafrost, conventional treatment systems can not be utilized.
See also
References
This page contains material imported from please see the [http://develop.consumerium.org/wiki/index.php?title=Waste&action=history history of the original article. The original material was licensed under the GFDL v 1.2.
- Total waste generation by sector - EEA Countries 1992-1997, European Environmental Agency, retrieved 5 January 2005.
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"Waste"