Waste management is the process of reducing or eliminating unwanted material through safe disposal, recycling, or recovery. This reduces the impact of waste on human health, the environment and planetary resources. Waste can be liquid or solid and may contain hazardous, biomedical, or radioactive materials. It may also include municipal, organic, and household trash.
In the field of environmental science, waste management is the collection and treatment of all kinds of solid and liquid wastes produced by humans and animal. This includes contaminated and untreated soil, water, air, and waste products from factories, homes, hospitals, and restaurants. It involves proper storage and transportation to processing facilities for safe disposal. It also includes collection and disposal of waste from natural disasters or other catastrophic events that cause a large amount of debris and toxic chemicals to be left behind.
The best way to manage waste is to prevent it from being created in the first place. This is done by implementing the 3Rs of Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. Reducing waste helps save money and conserves natural resources. For example, by using less packaging, you can cut down on the amount of waste that ends up in landfills and the oceans. Similarly, reusing items that would normally be discarded allows them to remain useful for longer. For instance, a cardboard box can be used as a trash bin or a plastic bucket can be repurposed as a container for water.
Some wastes cannot be avoided completely, so the next step in waste management is minimization or source reduction. This means creating products and manufacturing processes that minimize the quantity of waste generated, or reducing the toxicity of the waste that is produced. It can be done by using alternative raw materials, modifying production techniques, and redesigning products.
Another way to minimize waste is to recycle or reuse it. This is the third step of the waste hierarchy and can be accomplished through the following processes:
One of the most common ways to recycle is to use it as an animal feed. Domestic wastes such as vegetable peels and meat bones are often fed to small animals such as hamsters or rabbits, while large animal waste like pigs is used to produce biogas or electricity. Besides this, recycled products can be used in other ways such as for building materials or insulation.
Other methods of managing waste are converting it into energy through incineration, resource recovery and plasma gasification. Incineration is a thermal treatment that converts solid waste into heat, steam or ash. It is an effective way to deal with wastes that are difficult to dispose of in a safe manner. This method is also popular in countries that do not have enough landfill space to accommodate the increasing volume of waste. Resource recovery is a process that transforms useful discarded items into new materials or energy, such as metal, fuel or electricity. Plasma gasification, on the other hand, is a method that uses electrically charged or highly ionized gases to turn organic materials into combustible gasses.