All articles starting with W
11,426 articles
Waste container
A waste container, also called a trash can or dustbin, is a receptacle that holds rubbish and recyclables until collection, ranging from household bins to communal containers.
Waste Disposal Facilities
Waste disposal facilities, mainly municipal solid waste landfills and waste-to-energy incinerators, are engineered sites for managing residual waste. Key facts: RCRA closed US open dumps; 42 USC 7429 sets incinerator emission limits; Chinese cities show inverted-U capacity versus GDP per capita.
Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive
The WEEE Directive (Directive 2002/96/EC, recast as 2012/19/EU) is EU legislation requiring separate collection, treatment and recycling of waste electrical and electronic equipment, with producer financing, a 65% collection target, and a 2024 amendment fixing retroactive cost rules.
Waste heat boiler
A waste heat boiler is a boiler that makes steam, hot water, or thermal oil from hot exhaust gases of industrial processes and engines, recovering heat otherwise vented.
Waste heat recovery
Waste heat recovery (WHR) is the capture and reuse of thermal energy that industrial processes, power plants, or building systems would otherwise reject to the environment.
Waste heat recovery unit
A waste heat recovery unit (WHRU) is heat-transfer equipment that captures heat from industrial exhaust to produce steam or heated water, cutting fuel use and emissions.
Waste hierarchy
The waste hierarchy ranks waste management options from prevention at the top through reuse, recycling, and other recovery, down to disposal as the last resort.
Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) is a US Department of Energy repository near Carlsbad, New Mexico, for defense transuranic radioactive waste, opened in 1999.
Waste Land
Waste Land (Lixo Extraordinário) is a 2010 UK-Brazil documentary by Lucy Walker, João Jardim, and Karen Harley following artist Vik Muniz creating portraits with catadores at Rio's Jardim Gramacho landfill; Sundance and Berlinale audience award winner, 2011 Oscar nominee.
Waste management
Waste management, also called waste disposal, is the collection, transport, recovery, and disposal of waste, guided by a hierarchy ranking prevention above recycling, energy recovery, and disposal.
Waste Not
Waste Not (物尽其用) is a 2005 installation by Chinese artist Song Dong and his mother Zhao Xiangyuan, arranging over 10,000 household objects she saved around the frame of the family's demolished house.
Waste sorting
Waste sorting, also called waste separation, is the process of separating waste into material streams like paper, glass, metals, plastics, and organics so each can be recycled or composted.
Waste stabilization pond
Waste stabilization pond (oxidation pond, lagoon): natural wastewater treatment basin using bacteria, algae, sunlight, and sedimentation. Types include anaerobic, facultative, aerated, maturation ponds; low-cost, land-intensive, widely used for pathogen removal and reuse.
Waste Tide
Waste Tide (荒潮, Huangchao) is a 2013 science fiction novel by the Chinese writer Chen Qiufan, set on a fictional island that recycles the world's electronic waste.
Waste Treatment Plant (Hanford)
The Waste Treatment Plant is a Department of Energy facility at the Hanford Site in Washington state that converts radioactive tank waste into glass, built by Bechtel.
Waste-to-energy
Waste-to-energy (WtE), also called energy-from-waste or thermal recycling, is the recovery of energy from municipal solid waste, most commonly mass-burn incineration; over 3,100 plants worldwide operated as of early 2025.
Wasted Love
Wasted Love is JJ's (Johannes Pietsch) operatic pop song with a techno ending that won Eurovision 2025 in Basel for Austria with 436 points, the country's third win.
Wasted Penguinz
Wasted Penguinz is a Swedish hardstyle act from Helsingborg, formed in 2008 by Pontuz Bergman and Jon Brandt-Cederhäll, who became leaders of euphoric hardstyle before becoming Bergman's solo project in 2020.
Wasted vote
Wasted vote: an electoral-analysis term for ballots that elect no one, meaning losing votes plus winner surplus. Central to FPTP critique, Duverger's law, tactical voting, efficiency-gap gerrymandering litigation, and PR reform debates.
Wasteland (video game)
Wasteland (1988) is Interplay's post-apocalyptic party-based RPG, published by EA for Apple II, C64, and DOS; set in 2087, it inspired Fallout and received Wasteland Remastered in 2020.
Wasteland 2
Wasteland 2 (2014) is a post-apocalyptic squad-based tactical RPG by inXile Entertainment, direct sequel to the 1988 Wasteland that inspired Fallout; Kickstarter-funded with $2,933,252 from 61,290 backers, later re-released as the Director's Cut.
Wasteland 3
Wasteland 3 (inXile Entertainment, 2020) is a turn-based, party-based post-apocalyptic tactical CRPG set in frozen Colorado, sequel to Wasteland 2, funded on Fig, released Aug 28, 2020, with co-op and two 2021 expansions; Metacritic 85.
Wasteman
Wasteman is a 2025 British prison drama, Cal McMau's debut feature, starring David Jonsson as parole-bound inmate Taylor and Tom Blyth as cellmate Dee; premiered at TIFF 2025, released UK February 2026, 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.
WasteShark
The WasteShark is an autonomous surface vessel by the Dutch company RanMarine that removes floating waste and algae from ports, harbors, and canals while collecting water-quality data.
Wastewater
Wastewater is any water whose quality has been degraded by human use, including domestic sewage, industrial effluent, and stormwater; about 400 km³ is generated worldwide each year, much of it discharged untreated.
Wastewater monitoring
Wastewater monitoring, also called wastewater-based epidemiology, is a public health surveillance method measuring pathogens in sewage to track infection trends, used for polio since the 1930s and scaled nationally for COVID-19.
Wastewater treatment
Wastewater treatment, also called treatment of wastewater, removes contaminants from used water, chiefly sewage, through screening, settling, biological treatment, and disinfection before discharge or reuse.
Wastewater-based epidemiology
Wastewater-based epidemiology measures pathogens, biomarkers, or drug residues in community sewage to infer population-level disease and drug-use trends, used for polio since 1939 and widely deployed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Wasting Light
Wasting Light, Foo Fighters' seventh studio album (April 12, 2011, Roswell/RCA), recorded entirely to analog tape in Dave Grohl's Encino garage with producer Butch Vig; first Billboard 200 No. 1 for the band, six Grammy nominations, guests Bob Mould and Krist Novoselic.
Wasur National Park
Wasur National Park (Taman Nasional Wasur), a 413,810-hectare Ramsar wetland and savanna park in Merauke, South Papua, Indonesia, near the PNG border, home to the Marind Imbuti, Kanume, Marori Men Gey, and Yeinan indigenous tribes.