Waste management
51 cases in 33 countries, 1956–2026. Most cases: United States (9), India (7), Indonesia (3), China (3), Ghana (2).
Four global fashion brands launch second-hand clothing recovery coalition in Ghana
Brands including H&M, Inditex, Bestseller and adidas set up a recovery coalition at Kantamanto market in Accra, which Ghana News Agency said returns about 25 million garments a month. The cited sources give no measured environmental outcome for the market's garment waste.
California approves SB 54 packaging rules making producers pay USD 5 billion in 10 years
The regulation, approved on 1 May 2026, puts the cost of packaging waste on producers, with targets of a 25% cut and 65% recycling by 2032. A producer program plan puts the five-year cost at USD 9.3–17.2 billion. For nature, the question is whether producer payments reduce packaging waste that is landfilled or burned.
Eight winners named in Indonesia's waste-to-energy tenders, including Chandra Asri unit
Winners of Indonesia's waste-to-energy (PSEL) tenders, announced in July 2026, include a unit of petrochemical maker Chandra Asri and a subsidiary of state oil company Pertamina. At stake for nature is how much waste these plants will burn; the cited sources do not give the tariff or the length of public payment commitments.
Addis Ababa's Reppie waste-to-energy plant reported at half capacity
Ethiopia's Reppie incineration plant in Addis Ababa is reported to run at half its capacity, and GAIA said it processes 396 to 650 tonnes a day against a 1,400-tonne design. At stake for nature is whether burning waste at Reppie reduces what goes to the Koshe dump.
Milwaukee sewage fertilizer Milorganite found to contain about 7 ppb PFAS
Milorganite, a fertilizer made from Milwaukee sewage, was found to contain about 7 ppb of PFAS in 2025 reporting by Circle of Blue. The product also provides about 10% of the sewer utility's operating budget.
Mbeubeuss landfill plan to hire 500 of more than 3,000 waste pickers
A World Bank-financed rehabilitation of the Mbeubeuss landfill in Senegal is said to hire only 500 of more than 3,000 waste pickers, Seneweb reported. The cited sources give no pollution, cost or timetable data for the landfill.
Indian government paid Rs 126 crore to incinerate Union Carbide Bhopal waste
The Indian government paid Ramky Group Rs 126 crore to incinerate 336 tonnes of toxic waste from the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, according to The Hitavada. The report names no payment by Dow or Union Carbide.
Synagro biosolids and PFAS in Texas
Five farm families in Johnson County, Texas, sued Synagro in 2024, alleging that sewage sludge spread on a neighbouring field contaminated their water and killed animals. The company denies the claims.
Indonesia waste-to-energy (PSEL) tariff and Danantara
In 2025 Indonesia replaced the fee municipalities paid waste-to-energy plants with a 30-year electricity tariff of 20 US cents per kWh. In 2026 the Danantara investment fund selected operators, and the environmental group WALHI objected.
Mangistaumunaigas fines for wastewater injection, drilling waste and furnace emissions (Mangystau, 2024)
On 4 December 2024 the Karakiya District Court fined the KazMunayGas–CNPC joint venture Mangistaumunaigas KZT 31 billion after prosecutors said it had discharged wastewater into subsoil layers and accumulated drilling waste without established limits; a further KZT 1.2 billion fine for furnace emissions followed on 11 December. The company said it would challenge both.
Nine of ten e-waste storage sites in Thailand found unlicensed in 2024
A 2024 inspection found nine of 10 e-waste storage sites in Thailand to be unlicensed, with lead and arsenic detected. The Thaiger described the operators as nominee-run Chinese recycling plants that leaked toxic waste.
Braskem puts Camaçari petrochemical waste unit into Solví joint venture
Braskem, which owns 63.7% of waste and wastewater firm Cetrel, put Cetrel into a joint venture with Solví in June 2024, Exame reported. What is at stake for nature is who runs the waste and wastewater treatment for the Camaçari petrochemical complex.
Five Texas farm families sue Synagro over sewage-sludge fertilizer
Five families sued Synagro, a company that handles sewage sludge, and Johnson County declared a PFAS emergency in February 2025. At stake are farmland, water and livestock in the county.
Trump's EPA keeps Biden-era veto on Alaska's Pebble mine
In July 2025 the Trump administration's EPA reaffirmed the Biden-era veto on the proposed Pebble mine in Alaska, Alaska Public Media reported. The decision keeps the mine blocked.
French court approves permanent confinement of 42,000 tonnes of Stocamine waste
Banque des Territoires reported that a court approved permanent confinement of 42,000 tonnes of toxic waste at the Stocamine site in Alsace. The additional cost is 226 million euros, and the cited sources do not describe the environmental risks.
Poland takes Germany to EU court over 35,000 tonnes of waste it calls illegal
Poland brought a case at the EU Court of Justice over 35,000 tonnes of German waste that it calls illegal, according to Demagog. The cited sources do not describe the environmental effects of the waste.
Maine PFAS sludge farms
In May 2023 the PFAS Project reported that high PFAS levels had been found on 56 farms in Maine. A $60 million fund had been set up for affected farms; about $1 million had been paid out.
UK anaerobic digestion gate fees and the Hanford-Stoke dispute
In the United Kingdom, the fee that councils pay anaerobic digestion plants to take food and garden waste fell from a median of £24 to £13 per tonne, and new contracts signed from April 2022 had a negative median. Separately, an energy-from-waste operator at Hanford asked Stoke-on-Trent City Council for about £650,000 over waste it did not deliver.
Methane from Algerian landfills: Magtaa Kheira and Hassi Bounif
Carbon Mapper's satellite data, published in June 2025, showed methane emissions from the Magtaa Kheira landfill near Algiers almost two orders of magnitude larger than modelled emissions. A 2026 press article and a UCLA page differ on the rank of the Algiers landfill among the world's largest plumes of 2025.
Kanpur Rania chromium waste disposal is estimated at 98.46 crore rupees
Down To Earth reported that disposal of 85,008 tonnes of chromium waste at Kanpur Rania was estimated at 98.46 crore rupees in 2022. The state pays the cost first, and the cited sources do not say how the cost is finally shared.
Nairobi's Dandora dumpsite stays open despite 2021 court ruling
The Standard reported that Dandora remains open despite a 2021 court ruling and a 2022 Kenyan law requiring waste separation. The cited sources do not describe the environmental effects of the dumpsite.
Avacha Bay marine die-off, Kamchatka, autumn 2020
In September and October 2020 the water off Khalaktyrsky beach in Avacha Bay discolored and dead marine animals washed ashore. A study co-authored by Russian Academy of Sciences Vice-President Andrei Adrianov described a Karenia algal bloom; Greenpeace Russia and others pointed to the Kozelsky pesticide landfill and military ranges. The money on record is the budget for clearing the landfill.
India SATAT compost and compressed biogas shortfalls; Indore bio-CNG plant
India promotes compressed biogas plants and market support for city compost. Reports describe a private bio-CNG plant in Indore that pays the municipality, and a fall in city compost sales despite a per-tonne subsidy.
Buzachi Operating: KZT 8.4 billion for gas losses and unauthorised flaring (Mangystau, 2025)
Courts ordered Buzachi Operating Ltd, the operator of the North Buzachi field, to pay KZT 8.4 billion to the state for six years of oil and gas losses and flaring of raw gas without permission; the sum was paid in full in March 2025. In May 2026 the company was fined KZT 474 million for exceeding the hazardous-waste accumulation limit by 513.2 tonnes during drilling.
20,000 tonnes of arsenic-bearing sludge sent to Arica were left exposed
The Ecologist reported in 2019 that a Swedish firm exported toxic waste to Chile, where 20,000 tonnes of sludge were left in the open. The cited sources do not report effects on the surrounding environment.
Army removes 130 tonnes of solid waste from Siachen glacier
The Indian Army removed 130 tonnes of solid waste from the Siachen glacier in September 2019, Business Standard reported, to protect the glacier's ecosystem. The cited sources do not say how much waste remains.
Indonesia returns 883 of 2,194 flagged waste containers
Indonesia sent 883 of 2,194 flagged import containers back to their countries of origin, according to a 2019 report. Paper waste bales that reached East Java in 2018 were reported to hold 30–35% plastic, against a 2% legal limit.
Buenos Aires amends zero-waste law in 2018, with deadlines to 2030
Buenos Aires’s Basura Cero law sets the city’s waste-reduction targets. A 2018 amendment added “valorization” to its definition and moved the deadlines to 2021, 2025 and 2030, which changes what counts as progress.
Deliver-or-pay waste incinerator contract (Pietrasanta, Italy)
A waste-to-energy plant contract in Italy required a minimum of 10,000 tonnes a year. When separate collection rose and deliveries fell below it, the operator asked for €13 million and the municipalities paid €5 million.
Lagos Visionscape waste contract (Nigeria) and Zoomlion/Jospong (Ghana)
A ten-year waste-management contract in Lagos State, Nigeria, was reported to have collapsed within about three years, and a Ghanaian investigation examined payments to the waste companies Jospong Group and Zoomlion. The figures are as reported by Guardian Nigeria (via Songhai Advisory) and The Fourth Estate / Citi Newsroom.
Mosaic settles US hazardous-waste case over phosphogypsum handling
The US Justice Department and EPA reached a 2015 hazardous-waste settlement with Mosaic Fertilizer covering about 60 billion lbs of waste at eight sites. The Nature Conservancy lists The Mosaic Company as one of its corporate partners.
Swedish incinerator fly ash dumped on Langøya island in Norway
Swedish fly ash from waste incineration has been dumped on Langøya, an island in the Oslofjord in Norway, and chloride from it reaches the fjord, The Local reported. The cited sources give no measurement of the fjord or the island.
Lebanon's garbage piled up after Naameh landfill closed in 2015
After the Naameh landfill closed in 2015, garbage collection stopped in Lebanon and open burning of waste spread to more than 150 sites, Arab News reported. Open burning puts public health at risk.
Ocean Conservancy withdraws 2015 plastic incineration recommendation
Ocean Conservancy withdrew and apologised in 2022 for the incineration recommendation in its influential 2015 report, which Coca-Cola, Dow and the American Chemistry Council helped fund. The cited sources do not show what replaced the recommendation.
Bordo Poniente landfill biogas concession in Mexico City is delayed
Expansión reported that 82% of Mexico City's 8,500 tonnes of daily waste goes to landfill, and that 42% of organics are correctly separated. Mexico Business News reported that a biogas concession at the Bordo Poniente landfill, worth 1,121 million pesos, is delayed.
Ergene pollution case dropped on time limit as wastewater goes to Marmara
A criminal case over pollution in Turkey's Ergene basin was dismissed for statute of limitations in 2024. Since 2020 about 300,000 cubic metres of wastewater a day has been sent to the Sea of Marmara by deep discharge, instead of the river.
New York City began exporting waste out of state after Fresh Kills closed in 2001
Fresh Kills, New York City's landfill, closed in 2001 and became a park, after which city waste was exported out of state, according to Untapped Cities. The cited sources do not describe effects at the receiving sites.
Zakynthos landfill inside the National Marine Park, Greece: CJEU C-600/12 (2014) and penalty judgment C-368/24 (2025)
The Commission said a landfill inside the National Marine Park of Zakynthos had caused problems since 1999. The Court of Justice found Greece in breach on 17 July 2014 and, on 9 October 2025, ordered Greece to pay a lump sum of EUR 5,500,000 and a periodic penalty of EUR 12,500 per day until compliance.
Supreme Court dismisses Centre's bid for more Bhopal compensation from Union Carbide
The Supreme Court of India dismissed the Centre's 2023 bid for more compensation from Union Carbide. The 1989 settlement did not cover groundwater, and the state paid to burn the Bhopal waste in 2025.
Waste dumped on Teshima island under a 'valuable goods, not waste' label
About 939,000 tonnes of shredder dust and industrial waste were dumped on Teshima, Japan, after the operator called it valuable goods and the prefecture approved the classification. The cited sources do not describe effects on the island's environment.
Lake Valencia: rising level, sewage and compensation for flooded homes
Water imported for the Central Regional aqueduct has drained into Lake Valencia, which has no outlet; its level rose from about 401–402 m in the late 1970s to about 414 m, against a security level of 408 m. The Constitutional Chamber of Venezuela's Supreme Tribunal ordered compensation for flooded homes in 2006 and 2007, and in 2017 about half of the affected owners were still waiting.
Sewage sludge spread on Swiss farmland now linked to PFAS contamination
Sewage sludge spread on farms in St. Gallen and Appenzell Ausserrhoden in the 1970s to 1990s, on cantonal advisers' advice, is resurfacing as PFAS contamination, Keystone-SDA reported. What is at stake is the soil and who is to blame; the cited sources do not say how it will be cleaned up.
Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill: closure and waste clean-up
The Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill discharged treated wastewater into Lake Baikal from 1966 and stopped production in 2013 after bankruptcy proceedings. Millions of tonnes of pulp-production waste remained in storage ponds on the shore, and federal clean-up funding has been set by successive programmes since 2013.
Chisso executives sentenced over Minamata disease in 1979
Mercury-laden waste from Chisso's factory flowed into the bay at Minamata, Japan, for decades. 2,265 people were officially recognised as patients by 2001, and two former managers were sentenced in 1979.
Ghazipur landfill and India legacy-waste claims
India reports that it processes most of its waste. At the Ghazipur landfill in Delhi, a report found that only a small share of the old waste had been bio-mined by 2022.
Firms paid 569 million yuan over waste water evaporated in Tengger Desert ponds
Waste water was evaporated in ponds in China's Tengger Desert and the residue buried in the sand, Beijing News reported in a ten-year follow-up. Companies paid 569 million yuan and 824 million yuan was spent on repairs; the cited sources give no current measurement of the site.
Panguna mine waste on Bougainville exceeds 1 billion tonnes, with no clean-up
An independent assessment reported more than 1 billion tonnes of waste from the Panguna mine on Bougainville, with no clean-up. The cited sources give no measurements of land or water effects.
Herfa-Neurode underground store buried 2.8 million tonnes of hazardous waste
Hesse's environment ministry reported in 2012 that 2.8 million tonnes of hazardous waste had been buried at Herfa-Neurode, about 30 per cent of it from abroad. The cited sources do not describe the environmental effects.
Singapore's Semakau island landfill, mainly incineration ash, to fill by 2035
Singapore's Semakau landfill receives mainly incineration ash and is expected to be full by 2035. The cited sources do not report its environmental effects, and state that mining its waste for Tuas Port is under study.
Dioxin found in eggs near Lucknow medical waste incinerator
IPEN reported that eggs near a medical waste incinerator in Lucknow, India, contained dioxin at 16 times background and five times the EU limit. The case concerns dioxin contamination of food near incineration.
Republic Services subsidiaries lobbied on Superfund and federal cleanup funds
Two Republic Services subsidiaries spent about $180,000 a year on average lobbying on Superfund rules and federal cleanup funding, Waste Dive reported. The reported link to the West Lake Landfill radioactive site is unconfirmed; what is at stake is who pays to clean that site.