The Waste Directory Web Site

What is Waste Disposal ?

Waste Disposal is the management of waste to prevent harm to the environment, injury or long term progressive damage to health. Disposal of waste is where the intention is to permanently store the waste for the duration of its biological and chemical activity, such that it is rendered harmless. 

Find out about general waste management developments in Waste Technology and Mechanical Biological Treatment at this site.

Waste Directory Web Sites Links

The following sites all describe aspects of waste disposal, which also called waste management:-

www.landfill-site.com - Landfill Site Technical Information. UK Centred. All types of landfills, lists, links, and articles.

www.landfill-gas.com - Landfill Gas Technical Information. UK Centred. All types of landfills, lists, links, and articles. Landfill gas extraction, pumping and flaring. More recently some energy as aspects, and details about bio-oxidation research we have been conducting.

www.compost.me.uk - A composting web site which provides commercial composting information, and is a promotional vehicle for my employer’s Composting expertise. A very popular web site, for this small niche.

www.waste-technology.co.uk - A waste technology information web site which lists all the major waste technologies currently being developed for recycling, waste minimisation, and the diversion of waste from landfill. Again UK centred, and originally based on an extended briefing Note on Waste Technologies.

www.mechanical-biological-treatment.com - Links to my main Waste Technology Web Site. No unique content.

www.leachate-treatment.com - A site which is purely a niche site to promote the Enviros Consulting Leachate management Service.

www.leachate-irrigation.com - Set up as a collaborative site to research the stae of the art in leachate irrigation throughout Europe and wider if the oppotrunity arises. Just a small site. Much of the data is held in the membership area.

www.waste-technologies.co.uk - Is a large web site of articles, directory pages and information about the development of waste technologies for waste processing. Although the Index Page is UK centred, most of the rest of the site is worldwide in content and outlook.

www.anaerobic-digestion.com - After the popularity of the waste technology web sites became apparent I created this site which has in a short period since autumn 2005 become one of my most visited sites, second only to the main leachate web site.

www.leachate.co.uk - Leachate Treatment Site: UK centred and Worldwide Plants. Normally ranks well in all search engines. Listed in the DMOZ Directory. Provides detailed information and many case studies on the design and commissioning of biological leachate treatment plants. (What is leachate? It’s the dirty water that seeps out of landfilled waste mostly from rain.

More about further sites, and indian centred web sites generated during 2005, on another day.

What Is Waste Disposal?

We recently noticed that a lot of people are searching for the answer to the question, ‘What is Waste Disposal'. We also noticed that it is a question seldom answered on the internet, and we also thought initially that we were not in the least surprised.

Hey! Surely it must be a very boring and futile thing to give much thought to rubbish – everybody’s unwanted materials are surely got rid of because nobody is wants in them.

So, there we have it. Our first definition of waste disposal is: ‘Getting rid of trash or garbage.’

O.K. Fine. We just get rid of it. So, that’s all there is to waste disposal is it?

If I asked you what is waste disposal you would say once you have got ‘rid’ of it, it is disposed of. Is that like some sort of magic destruction of matter then?

Of course not, unless we could somehow throw our waste into the sun where it would actually be ‘destroyed" by nuclear fission into another element entirely, we cannot be ‘rid’ of it.

Throwing it away cannot in any sense be ‘got rid of’. If it goes into even a modern well designed landfill the waste will sit there for up a thousand years, still with a huge capability to damage the environment. It will damage the environment once the linings and seals get very old and leak unless we do something with it to convert it into something else.

Society is learning that unless we take a lot of action to ensure the right processing of our waste, nature will do it for us, and in ways which are very damaging to our environment. Water pollution is the worst impact, although odour is the most unpopular, and some people say that living near landfills can effect your health, although studies have shown that well controlled and regulated landfills as in most countries in Europe, and the US do not damage health of those living close by at all.

To look after our environment we have to collect all of our waste, and then re-use, recycle and treat it, before only the absolute minimum amount of waste will be landfilled in the least dangerous way.

So with a bit more thought from us as we read this, I think that ‘What is Waste Disposal’ has now become a much more interesting subject. The things that can be recycled are very much wanted things, and if some are not, then there is great skill and ingenuity which is being brought to bear to make almost all of these things into useful products which people will want.

Now look at it another way. What a wonderful opportunity has suddenly opened up. Now we have a demand for the creativity of a whole range of individuals, to make things from waste. We are asking these people to develop new technologies, start new companies and make money in completely new ways.

So, remembering what we have said above; we now must surely say that the answer to our question; ‘What is waste disposal’, needs to change. Waste disposal has become waste management. Waste disposal IS nowadays called waste management, and many are looking for the day when the word ‘waste’ can simply be replaced by the word ‘resource’. This is because, in the perfect society one man’s waste should simply become another man’s raw material. In other words, in a perfectly sustainable society there would be ‘zero-waste’.

The Waste Management Industry is the industry which carries out waste disposal today, It is a rapidly expanding, exciting, innovative, and forward thinking industry.

So that brings us to the Wikipedia’s definition of Waste Management.

Wikipedia says that;

'Waste management is the collection, transport, processing or disposal of waste materials, usually ones produced by human activity, in an effort to reduce their effect on human health or local amenity. A subfocus in recent decades has been to reduce waste materials' effect on the environment and to recover resources from them.'

For us in Europe I would go further than Wikipedia, and I would say that in the last few years there has been so much attention to diverting waste away from disposal (landfill) that the word ‘subfocus’ should be changed to simply ‘focus’ in their definition.

Find out more about the exciting new waste management (waste disposal?) technologies where the aim is zero waste at the Waste Technologies Web Site here > Waste Technology UK and Mechnical Biological Treatment .

Landfill Leachate is Necessary for all lined landfills other than those in arid climates. The following news is about developments in leachate management:

Keywords: what is waste disposal, waste management

Tags: DSEAR Leachate Landfill Mechanical Biological Treatment Waste Technology Anaerobic Digestion Leachate Treatment Compost Landfill Gas Landfill Site