Waste

Electrical and electronic waste, or E-waste, refers to electrical or electronic equipment that is waste, including all components, sub-assemblies and consumables that are part of the equipment at the time the equipment becomes waste (UNEP, 2019a). 

Health-care waste is a by-product of health care that includes sharps, non-sharp blood contaminated items, blood, body parts and tissues, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and radioactive materials. Safe management of health-care waste protects health-care workers, waste handlers, patients and their families and the community to preventable infections, toxic effects and injuries (adapted from WHO, no date, and WHO, 2017). 

Landfill is the final placement of waste in or on the land in a controlled or uncontrolled way according to different sanitary, environmental protection and other safety requirements (UN Data, no date). 

Tailings are a by-product of mining, consisting of the processed rock or soil left over from the separation of the commodities of value from the rock or soil within which they occur (adapted from GISTM, 2020). 

Waste [treatment] lagoons can be defined as impoundments made by excavation or earth fill for biological treatment of animal and other agricultural waste (Spellman & Bieber, 2012). 

Marine debris is any persistent, manufactured or processed solid material discarded, disposed of or abandoned in the marine and coastal environment. Marine litter consists of items that have been made or used by people and deliberately discarded into the sea or rivers or on beaches; brought indirectly to the sea with rivers, sewage, stormwater or winds; or accidentally lost, including material lost at sea in bad weather (adapted from UN Environment, no date and NOAA, no date). 

Disaster and conflict waste is the waste generated by the impact of a disaster or conflict, both as a direct effect of the disaster or conflict as well as in the post-disaster and post-conflict phase as a result of poor waste management (UNEP/OCHA, 2011). 

Solid waste covers discarded materials that are no longer required by the owner or user. Solid waste includes materials that are in a solid or liquid state but excludes wastewater and small particulate matter released into the atmosphere (United Nations, 2014).

Wastewater is regarded as a combination of one or more of the following materials: domestic effluent consisting of ‘blackwater’ (excreta, urine and faecal sludge, contaminants from pharmaceutical and personal care products) and ‘greywater’ (used water from washing and bathing); water from commercial establishments and institutions, including hospitals; industrial effluent, stormwater and other urban runoff; and agricultural, horticultural and aquaculture runoff (UNEP, 2023a). 

Hazardous waste is waste that has physical, chemical, or biological characteristics such that it requires special handling and disposal procedures to avoid negative health effects, adverse environmental effects or both (Joint UNEP/OCHA Environment Unit, 2011).