Talk:Waste

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[edit] Recent additions

I have removed the following passage from the introduction. These statements are not wholely correct and are relative:

"Although these words are often used as synonyms in colloquial American English, they are not:

  • waste is unusable material produced by a manufacturing process;
  • rubbish is useless or rejected material;
  • trash is material that is worth nothing;
  • garbage is food waste;
  • junk is discarded material which may be used again."

--Alex 14:21, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thoughts on waste definition

Waste is itself a human concept that has changed over time. In nature everything is reused or benign. Over time many problematic forms of waste such as Coal_tar and used Cooking_oil have become valued materials, and there is increasing adoption of closed loop production systems. -- M0llusk 18:27, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removed content, added by an anonymous editor

No organism on the Earth is 100% efficient. As it consumes resources, there is a certain amount of waste. Without the waste of our ancestors, we would not know so much about how they lived and what they ate. Any archaeologist will be happy to find an antiquity waste dump. [1]

Perhaps somebody can decide what to do with it? - Mike Rosoft 11:33, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I think this is of use to the article cultural dynamics section but needs to be reworded. --Alex 12:04, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cultural dynamics

Archaeologists often use ancient spoil heaps and waste dumps as a source of information about the past. Elements that are discarded by a society are indicative of a number of different cultural dynamics such as what food was being consumed at the time and how prosperous a community was. Waste, www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2, Retrieved 13.12.06

[edit] Biological production of waste

 Please help improve this article or section by expanding it.
Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (January 2007)

Organisms must take in energy and nutrients in order to survive. Through their metabolism by-products are created which are excreted from the body as waste.

[edit] Merge

Waste and municipal waste are distinct terms and I do not believe they should be merged. Other types of waste including C&I waste, hazarous waste are all distinct in their own right in the field of waste management.--Alex 07:55, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, fair enough, and I will remove my tag. But then the current Waste article needs to be heavily edited, as the article as it stands seems to be talking almost exclusively about municipal solid waste. Are you up for rewriting it to cover waste in general? (And I don't think a discussion of "wasting time" belongs here...) --Macrakis 12:33, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
I see where you are coming from. It probably does need to mention different types of waste. I arranged these under the Category:Waste. As you can see there are potentially a lot to cover. The cultural dynamics bit was part of some bloke's thesis who was adament that it needed some mention of the metaphorical term. Happy to alter as per a logical approach would require.--Alex 13:48, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Windows Vista

Everyone knows Vista is unwanted/undesired material. I say it should be added to this page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.99.198.186 (talk) 23:33, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Solid Waste Pollution

This article is great defining waste and showing examples but there is little information governing waste pollution from acts such as littering and illegal dumping (note the image I have added with the subdivision garbage pile).

When I have time I will expand the article in a few days, if before then however someone has time to begin creating a new section within the article that would be great.

Consider these topics:

Littering Illegal Dumping Transport Loss/Blow Off (things fly out of waste and other trucks on the road)

There environmental impacts are as follows:

  • Soil contamination
  • Ecological/Biological contamination and others (some birds and fish choke on trash)
  • Social effects (waste is ugly, lowers property values etc... consider littering)
  • Political effects such externalities and cleanup costs (illegal dumping especially)

I also don't see any pollution articles anywhere which properly deal with solid waste contamination, lots of stuff about "pollution" but very little dealing with solid waste pollution. Heck, the noise pollution article is bigger lol.

Theonlysilentbob (talk) 19:21, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] caption

Does anyone else feel that that image caption is way to long? can someone merge that info into the article or delete it? --Simpson s fan 66 00:52, 20 January 2008 (UTC)