Waste treatment and disposal encompasses the engineered processes and systems used to manage solid, liquid, and gaseous wastes to minimize environmental and human health impacts. It includes physical, chemical, and biological treatment methods such as sedimentation, filtration, adsorption, oxidation–reduction, incineration, composting, anaerobic digestion, and advanced thermal or physicochemical processes, often integrated with resource recovery (e.g., energy, nutrients, materials). Disposal refers to the final placement of residuals in landfills, deep-well injection, or other long-term containment systems designed with liners, leachate collection, gas management, and monitoring to control emissions, prevent groundwater contamination, and ensure regulatory compliance.
The adverse health impacts associated with emissions across the full life cycle of plastics could double by 2040 unless immediate action is taken, new research suggests. The study identified health harms at every stage of ...
Environment
Jan 27, 2026
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In lush South Florida, trees and bushes grow all year round. And that means yard waste and dead trees never stop piling up. But leaving them in a landfill is a climate-warming issue. Two South Florida governments think they ...
Earth Sciences
Jan 26, 2026
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Plastic pollution is everywhere—including where you would least expect it, especially when it's in tiny particle form. Today, scientists are working to measure the consequences of this contamination. There's the pollution ...
Environment
Jan 23, 2026
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Mangroves, typical of tropical and subtropical latitudes, have become veritable natural traps for land- and sea-based waste. The roots of these trees, known as mangroves, have a great capacity to trap litter—from both land ...
Environment
Jan 22, 2026
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If there's one material that defines modern life more than any other, it's plastic: present from the moment we're born in newborn stool, in product packaging, in the soil beneath our feet and the air we breathe.
Environment
Jan 22, 2026
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Researchers at the University of Oulu, Finland, have developed a pine-bark–based water-treatment medium that efficiently removes antibiotics as well as residues of blood-pressure and antidepressant medicines from wastewater ...
Environment
Jan 21, 2026
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Excavated soil from construction sites usually ends up in landfills, but it has great potential. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) show how excavated soil can be enriched with organic waste so that it ...
Environment
Jan 13, 2026
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With an estimated 30–40% of the United States' food supply ending up as waste, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, food science and horticulture experts teamed up to study if it could lay the foundation ...
Biotechnology
Jan 9, 2026
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Like much of the Western world, Canada is facing a crisis in waste disposal as landfills reach their capacity. In Ontario, a live countdown gives municipal landfills just eight more years before they are full. We urgently ...
Environment
Dec 25, 2025
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UC Riverside scientists have created a small-scale system that transforms food waste into high-protein animal feed and fertilizer using black soldier flies, offering a sustainable solution to a major environmental problem.
Biotechnology
Dec 23, 2025
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