Waste Management Practices

Waste materials are often unavoidable by-products of most human activity and are defined as something to be discarded as unusable or unwanted. Rapid economic growth, urbanization, and increasing population have resulted in an increase in resource consumption and the consequent generation of large amounts of waste. This generation of waste reflects a loss of materials and energy and imposes economic and environmental costs on society for its collection, management, and disposal. Of the 17 sustainable development goals of the United Nations, four are directly or partially related to waste management such as food waste, recycling, global carbon emissions, and the use of plastics. Traditional waste management options are chosen based on affordability, technical feasibility, and aesthetics. These options lack a holistic approach covering the whole chain of product design, raw material extraction, production, consumption, recycling, and waste management. Further, current waste management practices do not fully evaluate the ancillary human health and environmental impacts and the environmental equity of the chosen options. The recent detection of forever chemicals (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS) in waste threatens to disrupt most of the current waste management options. Although zero waste is an ambitious goal for many communities, currently, there is little evidence of decoupling of affluence and waste generation.