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.
Billions of alkaline-loving microbes could offer a new way to protect nuclear waste buried deep underground. This approach overcomes the limitations of current cement barriers, which can crack or break down over time.
A University of Michigan study has found that people in Ghana and across the Global South who recycle electronic waste face a difficult paradox: earning livelihoods to ensure survival comes at the cost of severe long-term ...
Environment
Dec 4, 2025
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A comprehensive study by the CritMET research group, led by Prof. Michael Bau, a geochemist at Constructor University in Bremen, provides evidence of widespread contamination of the North Sea and the Baltic Sea with MRI contrast ...
Environment
Nov 26, 2025
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Chemical engineering researchers at the University of Waterloo have joined forces to take on a pressing environmental problem by using synthetic biology to turn plastic waste into valuable resources. The multidisciplinary ...
Cell & Microbiology
Nov 24, 2025
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A recent spill of bio-beads—small plastic pellets used by some wastewater treatment facilities since the 1990s—has brought renewed attention to a problem that has been quietly accumulating in coastal waters for years.
Environment
Nov 24, 2025
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Researchers at Clarkson University have discovered a new way to destroy "forever chemicals," known as PFAS, using only stainless steel ball milling equipment. The method does not need added chemicals, heat, or solvents.
Environment
Nov 21, 2025
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In one of the most important state environmental decisions this year, California air regulators adopted new rules designed to reduce methane leaks and better respond to disastrous underground fires at landfills statewide.
Environment
Nov 21, 2025
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A vast canyon of buried garbage has been smoldering inside a landfill in the Santa Clarita Valley, inducing geysers of liquid waste onto the surface and noxious fumes into the air.
Environment
Nov 20, 2025
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Australia's recycling system has been lurching from one crisis to another for decades. Soft-plastic schemes are collapsing, curbside contamination is on the rise, and states are still struggling to coordinate a coherent national ...
Environment
Nov 6, 2025
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A research project within Resource Recovery at the University of Borås in Sweden explored how valuable substances can be extracted from organic waste—such as animal manure—and how this loop can be closed by producing ...
Cell & Microbiology
Nov 6, 2025
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