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What is waste
Waste is defined as anything that is no longer required by the user or the producer. The waste may still be of use to someone else, but if you no longer require it, the law says it is waste.
In the natural world there is no such thing as waste as everything decomposes to organic matter and the nutrients are recycled so completing a natural cycle.
Waste disposal strategies should see waste as wasted resource. Waste can then be "mined" just like many other mineral resosurces. One Japanese quality guru stated that "there is no such thing as waste - only lost resources"
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How much
Everything we discard as waste was once raw materials, often finite, extracted, processed, transported then paid for.
When you calculate the costs of waste, most people consider only the cost of the skip. Add up the costs of the raw materials that end up in the bin, the labour costs to clean them up, and transport to get it to the bin, and you soon see there are a lot more costs before disposal. According to 'Doing Your Bit', in just over a week, England and Wales produce enough rubbish to fill Wembley Stadium. Total waste in the UK is over 400 million tonnes per year.
Waste production cannot be eliminated entirely. Over half can be recycled. Some ways to reduce waste are better than others....
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DEVELOPING ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS 
