Waste management is a multidisciplinary subject. All human activities produce waste, hazardous or nonhazardous. In the waste hierarchy set by the European Union Waste Framework Directive (2008), the following order is prioritized for any waste unit: reduce–reuse–recycle–recover–landfill. This means that waste should primarily be minimized and products should be reused as they are or their materials should be recycled. If this is not possible, waste should be recovered for energy, a good alternative to using fossil fuels or harvesting biological materials. The least favorable option for waste is to dump it in a landfill. Landfilling requires large land areas and the sites pollute the environment by leaching of polluted water and gas. © 2026 Elsevier Inc. All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies.