Solid Waste Management

As humans have organized society toward greater productivity and prosperity, solid wastes have increased due to ever-higher levels of consumption of goods and services. Solid waste is typically an unwanted by-product from many of our daily activities, easily generated and often difficult to eliminate. Waste is best defined as material from a process that is discarded or unusable. It may occur as a liquid waste, gaseous waste, biodegradable waste, or solid waste. Some wastes are considered a pollutant, disrupting natural ecosystems, while others like biodegradable waste are more in balance with the system or process from which they are created. For this article's purpose, solid waste is commonly referred to as household trash or garbage, discarded or abandoned, including the often-used interchangeable term municipal solid ...