Waste

Waste and wastes are unwanted or unusable materials. Waste is any substance which is discarded after primary use, or it is worthless, defective and of no use.

The term is often subjective (because waste to one person is not necessarily waste to another) and sometimes objectively inaccurate (for example, to send scrap metals to a landfill is to inaccurately classify them as waste, because they are recyclable). Examples include municipal solid waste (household trash/refuse), hazardous waste, wastewater (such as sewage, which contains bodily wastes (feces and urine) and surface runoff), radioactive waste, and others.

Definitions

United Nations Environment Program

According to the Basel Convention,

United Nations Statistics Division, Glossary of Environment Statistics

European Union

Under the Waste Framework Directive, the European Union defines waste as "an object the holder discards, intends to discard or is required to discard."

Types

There are many waste types defined by modern systems of waste management, notably including:

Latest News for: Waste time on

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'His swagger is back' but Villa won't 'waste time' on Rashford future

BBC News 30 Mar 2025
Aston Villa loanee Marcus Rashford scored his first goals for Aston Villa in the FA Cup quarter-final win at Preston as he continues to show some of his old swagger ... ....
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Social media addicts: Here are tips to stop wasting time on apps

Fast Company 13 Mar 2025
If you’ve got a smartphone, you probably spend too much time on it — checking Instagram, watching silly TikTok videos, messaging on WhatsApp or doomscrolling on X ... An easy first step is getting rid of any apps you’ve been wasting time on ... time that can be spent on it....

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