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waste
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
waste
I.noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a rubbish/waste bin
▪ The rubbish bin is full.
a waste pipe
▪ What’s the best way to clear a blocked waste pipe?
a wasted journey (=one that did not achieve the result you wanted)
▪ To avoid a wasted journey, ring first to check that the event is still on.
a wasted trip (=a trip in which you do not achieve what you wanted to)
▪ I’m afraid you’ve had a wasted trip. We don’t have those shoes in stock.
a wasted/lost/missed opportunity (=one you do not use)
▪ Many people see the failed talks as a missed opportunity for peace.
a wastepaper/waste basket (=for paper you throw away)
▪ He threw her letter in the wastepaper basket.
be a waste of money
▪ Fancy clothes for a baby are a waste of money.
chemical waste
▪ the risks from pollution and chemical waste
complete waste of time
▪ This is a complete waste of time.
domestic waste (=food, paper, glass etc that you throw out from the house)
▪ More domestic waste needs to be recycled.
garden waste (=grass, leaves etc that you have cut and do not want)
▪ The brown bin is for garden waste.
hazardous waste
▪ the disposal of hazardous waste
nuclear waste
▪ the problems of nuclear waste disposal
radioactive waste
radioactive waste
▪ the problem of how to dispose of radioactive waste
shocking waste
▪ a shocking waste of money
toxic waste
▪ a toxic waste dump
toxic waste
▪ fumes from a toxic waste dump
waste disposal (=getting rid of unwanted materials or substances)
▪ Most countries have improved their standards of waste disposal.
waste disposal
▪ the problem of radioactive waste disposal
waste dump
▪ an underground nuclear waste dump
waste fuel
▪ The booklet gives helpful tips on how to avoid wasting fuel.
waste ground (=land in a town that is not being used)
▪ They were standing on the waste ground behind the car park.
waste ground
▪ a piece of waste ground
waste money (on sth)
▪ Don’t waste your money on a computer that doesn’t have enough memory.
waste paper
waste product
▪ nuclear waste products
waste resources
▪ We cannot afford to waste our resources on fighting each other.
waste time
▪ You are wasting your time arguing with him.
waste your talents
▪ They felt their son was wasting his talents and his time.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
chemical
▪ In the North Sea, Greenpeace swimmers turned back dump ships carrying chemical wastes.
complete
▪ Borrowing lecture notes is often a complete waste of time because you've missed the impact.
▪ Look at Micky Deere, he's a complete waste of space.
▪ She said it was a complete waste of paint.
▪ It will either be a complete waste of time or you will find a real gem.
▪ Why would Wilko be even remotely interested in a complete waste of space like St-wart.
▪ Eventually, I realized the exercise was a complete waste of time.
▪ Firstly, this little episode exposes pre-nuptial contracts in this country to be the complete waste of paper they are.
▪ In my opinion, any attempt to reconcile the statements of principle in Lawrence and Morris is a complete waste of time.
dangerous
▪ Under that programme, they have been able to demonstrate ways of breaking up many dangerous industrial wastes.
▪ As it becomes more expensive to dump dangerous waste, so the economic advantages of shredding deteriorate.
▪ Underground bacteria could compromise the containers used to bury radioactive and other dangerous wastes.
domestic
▪ Biofuels include crops and trees, sewage and animal slurry, and industrial and domestic wastes.
▪ Recycle 60% of domestic waste by 2000.
▪ Councils were supposed to set up sites for industrial and domestic wastes; the Baldonnell site was to marshal other unsuitable wastes.
▪ Plastics constitute 20 percent by volume of domestic waste in Britain.
▪ Energy for Waste Ten percent of domestic waste is currently being burned.
▪ Up to one tenth of our domestic waste is glass, all of which could be recycled without any deterioration in quality.
▪ Putrid domestic waste drips into the already festering canals.
hazardous
▪ It also believes strongly that there should be a ban on the import of hazardous waste into the United Kingdom.
▪ The quantity of hazardous waste sent out-of-state for treatment totals 252, 460 metric tons.
▪ This meets the growing need to improve geoscience knowledge relevant to strategies for subsurface disposal of hazardous and radioactive wastes.
▪ A majority of the industrial groups produce less than 10, 000 metric tons of hazardous waste.
▪ It is essential, therefore, that we proceed with great caution when handling toxic and hazardous waste.
▪ Trans-frontier shipments of hazardous wastes also comes under new controls.
▪ The Labour party believes that there are a number of essential approaches to toxic and hazardous waste.
human
▪ In it we can see reflected the ecological, psychological, spiritual damage and the massive human waste of this war.
▪ Nor should trash or debris or human wastes.
▪ It smelt not only of mud and rotting materials, but also the unmistakable odour of human waste.
▪ It either smelled like human waste or gar-bage or both mixed together, which it probably was.
▪ People would not wish to eat animals fed on human waste.
▪ The primary cause of the dreadful smell was the disposal of human waste.
▪ By bacteriological process, human waste is reduced to a purified liquid suitable for discharge.
▪ Toward that end, protesters stoned police, cursed them, even threw bags of human waste at them.
industrial
▪ From 1995, the dumping of all forms of industrial waste will be prohibited outside of territorial waters.
▪ Any industrial byproducts or waste can be used for this purpose.
▪ Biofuels include crops and trees, sewage and animal slurry, and industrial and domestic wastes.
▪ Councils were supposed to set up sites for industrial and domestic wastes; the Baldonnell site was to marshal other unsuitable wastes.
▪ Sewage sludge and industrial waste will still enter the North Sea from Britain until 1998.
▪ Far from being a resource, most farmers see slurry as just another form of industrial waste.
▪ Material suitable for deep sea dumping included sewage sludge, industrial waste, and toxic ashes left after the incineration of garbage.
▪ It was agreed to halt all depositing of industrial waste in international waters by 1995, including sub-seabed disposal of nuclear waste.
nuclear
▪ The United Kingdom does not reprocess nuclear waste; we do not even import nuclear waste.
▪ Congress has tried to find a site to bury high-level nuclear wastes for decades, with a notable lack of success.
▪ Containing nuclear waste Anti-nuclear campaigners sometimes claim that nuclear fission and its dangerous products are a purely manmade phenomenon.
▪ Nor can the market get rid of or store nuclear waste.
▪ This has been seriously assessed as a way of disposing of nuclear waste, but not toxic waste.
▪ For nuclear waste, disposal into space is more feasible but has been discounted on numerous occasions because of the risks.
▪ Depleted uranium, one of the hardest metals known, is classified as low-level nuclear waste.
▪ The dispute over nuclear waste is a hangover from the last hours of the Conservative government in 1997.
organic
▪ A plastic dustbin with breeding colony on to which organic waste is showered.
▪ That treatment system, which only removes organic waste, costs $ 41, 000 annually to operate and maintain.
▪ The prime culprit is organic farm waste, such as cattle slurry and silage, and even milk.
▪ Producing methane gas from landfill sites, sewage works and organic wastes is another extremely practical use of resources.
▪ The lagoons would be lined and filled with organic waste, after recyclable materials had been separated.
▪ Food, wood, the organic wastes of animals and plants are all forms of biomass.
radioactive
▪ Inside each drum was a designated quantity of radioactive waste.
▪ The nations augmented the prohibitions in 1993 with a voluntary moratorium on disposing of low-level radioactive waste.
▪ The thought of thousands of tonnes of radioactive waste being buried under their favourite stretch of countryside filled local residents with horror.
▪ Both radioactive fission products and induced radioactivity in structural materials contribute to the problem of radioactive waste.
▪ Sites are being selected for final disposal of radioactive waste.
▪ These secretive facilities house the deadly legacies of the Cold War: nuclear weapons, radioactive waste and toxic chemicals.
▪ In 1981 violent storms redistributed some of the plutonium, along with other radioactive wastes stored ashore.
▪ The process produces a much smaller volume of chemically inert radioactive waste than conventional ion exchange techniques.
solid
▪ Aluminium smelters are only one of a score of industries which now pollute the total environment with fluoride emissions and solid wastes.
▪ Dissolved metals form a solid waste.
▪ Last year solid waste totalled 227,000 tonnes but this is forecast to fall to 206,000 tonnes this year.
▪ For many years, solid waste was incinerated.
▪ The licensing of tip sites for the disposal of solid waste requires similar inspections.
▪ Their goal is to recycle all air, water and solid wastes using mechanical and chemical processes as well as plants.
▪ It is obvious from this that a family's solid wastes will not be adequate to meet their cooking needs.
▪ Another employee group studied problems in solid waste, where waiting time at the Energy Recovery Plant was delaying drivers every afternoon.
terrible
▪ He would have regarded mastication as a terrible waste of time.
▪ To us, coming from marketing backgrounds, this is a terrible waste of talent and effort.
▪ But it still makes me bitter and angry at the waste, the terrible waste of all that love I had.
▪ Inherent in all these schemes was the almost unanimous conviction that the Falls, undeveloped by man, represented a terrible waste.
▪ Lies are a terrible distraction and waste of a citizen's time.
▪ A terrible waste of time and money.
total
▪ And advances in technology have made congestion no longer a total waste of time.
▪ Distasteful, and a total waste of time.
▪ A total waste of the fantasy potential of the Illusochamber.
▪ Household waste accounts for perhaps 4% of the total waste produced in Britain.
▪ Perhaps this expedition did not have to be a total waste.
toxic
▪ It proposes a two-year ban on exports of toxic waste while the new technologies are being tested.
▪ Indeed, they see incineration as a solution to toxic waste whose usefulness should be employed on a greater range of materials.
▪ It is essential, therefore, that we proceed with great caution when handling toxic and hazardous waste.
▪ Even allowing for O'Donovan doing half as much business, this would mean 3000 tonnes of toxic waste leaving Ireland a year.
▪ Read in studio A man who's accused of dumping highly toxic waste into a river has been remanded on bail.
▪ There is still no provision for a national toxic wastes dump.
▪ We do not believe that the United Kingdom should import any toxic and hazardous waste.
▪ ReChem, for example, concentrates on extremely toxic waste.
■ NOUN
disposal
▪ Nuclear waste Disposal of intermediate level nuclear waste on land also presents a hazard.
▪ Discussions of future reactor safety should revolve about two critical issues: nuclear waste disposal and nuclear weapons proliferation.
▪ At present the local authority has no facilities for toxic waste disposal, which must be sent elsewhere.
household
▪ This year's investment amounting to £10 million, will focus on the potential of sorting household waste.
▪ In the case of household waste, the price rarely covers more than a fraction of the cost of collection and sorting.
▪ The plant will generate up to 38 million megawatts a year from burning 400,000 tonnes of household waste.
▪ Organic household waste can be composted to make garden fertilizer.
▪ Dangerous items such as these should never have found their way into household waste.
▪ At present, 90 percent of all household waste is disposed of by burial in landfill sites.
▪ It is illegal to put large quantities of animal faeces in household waste for collection, so that idea is ruled out.
product
▪ In several instances hearths associated with workshop waste products were found, particularly for the production of glass beads and bronze jewellery.
▪ Octopuses are very delicate animals that are sensitive to nitrogenous and other waste products of fish.
■ VERB
deal
▪ Some countries did not have the facilities to deal with the wastes themselves and a ban might encourage indiscriminate dumping.
▪ That means councils are having to rethink the way they deal with waste.
dispose
▪ This has been seriously assessed as a way of disposing of nuclear waste, but not toxic waste.
▪ The nations augmented the prohibitions in 1993 with a voluntary moratorium on disposing of low-level radioactive waste.
▪ After recycling, we must find the safest way in which to dispose of the waste.
▪ Unable to dispose of the poisonous waste, the yeasts shut down and become dormant.
▪ Other provisions to provide incentives for states to dispose of the waste remained intact.
▪ Where toilet facilities are not available, dispose of human waste in a sanitary manner.
dump
▪ That Soviet ships dumped nuclear waste in the area has been suspected for many years.
▪ At first she dumped the garden waste, but she soon realized this would make excellent garden compost.
▪ What about the dumping of toxic waste?
▪ On Thursday delegates approved a resolution calling for a two-year ban on dumping radioactive wastes in the sea.
▪ Activists have caught vessels dumping nuclear waste at sea, but most no longer sail.
▪ As it becomes more expensive to dump dangerous waste, so the economic advantages of shredding deteriorate.
▪ He says in the 1950's there were plans to dump nuclear waste in mineshafts.
produce
▪ Greenpeace is campaigning for the closure of all industries producing wastes containing organochlorides, including dioxins.
▪ Plants in the same general category produce different configurations of wastes, since they operate in the slightly different ways.
▪ Nuclear power carries the risk of accidents and produces radio-active waste which will pollute the environment for centuries.
recycle
▪ Give community recycling schemes financial support. Recycle 60% of domestic waste by 2000.
▪ The department is now advising other customers on how to recycle their waste.
▪ Ben Ord said the cost of attending the conference on recycling was a waste of money.
▪ So households have no incentive to minimise or recycle the waste they create.
▪ Nature has the capacity to recycle wastes and reconstitute them into new resources of concentrated material quality.
reduce
▪ One objective is to reduce waste by 50 percent by 1995, particularly substances harmful to the environment.
▪ The third priority is to use it more efficiently by improving irrigation, reducing waste, and so on.
▪ Nevertheless, work continues around the Group to reduce wastes of every kind.
▪ However, this reduces efficiency, wastes heat and causes a fire danger.
▪ Minimal packs: Some packaging is designed to reduce waste during manufacture.
▪ One such project was to have focused on reducing the toxic waste produced when making the plutonium core of nuclear missiles.
▪ To reduce wastes by 50 percent by 1995, using 1990 as the baseline year.
▪ We are therefore constantly looking for ways both to reduce the amount of waste we produce and to upgrade that which remains.
store
▪ The country lacked the technology to store the waste safely and it was threatening water supplies.
▪ They say it's irresponsible to store radioactive waste where it can be a public danger and a safety risk.
▪ The dump is intended to store low- and intermediate-level waste from the year 2005.
treat
▪ But instead of concentrating on treating waste, research was needed into fundamentally cleaner processes that conserved water and reduced waste.
▪ The United States sees it as an enormous proliferation risk that would be better treated as waste and buried.
▪ The cremation of dead pets, which are treated as clinical waste, was a revelation.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
don't waste your breath
▪ Save your breath. He won't listen.
lay waste sth
waste/solid/organic/vegetable etc matter
▪ After all, it eventually produces waste matter.
▪ Because if they didn't, then all solid matter would simply turn to vapour.
▪ It tells you just about how much organic matter is present.
▪ It was the only solid matter they would meet this side of Jupiterstill two hundred million miles away.
▪ Some organic matter is needed in order to produce nice specimens.
▪ The quantity needed may, however, vary according to the quantity of organic matter in the raw water.
▪ Urban refuse is 75 percent organic matter.
▪ You can improve your soil by adding organic matter.
wasted journey/trip/effort etc
▪ As processes improve, it cuts out much of the wasted effort and rework, thus enhancing productivity.
▪ By providing clear goals and objectives, it minimises frustration and wasted effort. 4.
▪ If no-one answered soon he would have to chalk it up as a wasted trip, and Montgomery would not be amused.
▪ It could save you a lot of wasted effort and money.
▪ Not a wasted journey, after all, but she was anxious to carry on.
▪ Not that it was a completely wasted trip, what with the hardware store right next door.
▪ Pembrooke had a wasted journey to Downpatrick yesterday.
▪ What a ridiculously wasted effort this was, Bill.
wasting asset
▪ My feeling, for what it's worth, is that they should be regarded as wasting assets.
wasting disease/illness
▪ A preacher, victim of a wasting illness, would refer in the pulpit to his forthcoming demise without shocking his congregation.
▪ Children have been born deformed and there are fears of genetic defects; many adults are suffering from wasting diseases.
▪ She will host the surprise get-together tomorrow as a thank you to the victims of a fatal muscle wasting disease.
▪ There is not much point in weighing less but looking as if you are suffering from some wasting disease.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Industrial waste had leaked into the water supply.
▪ It's a good idea to recycle household waste.
▪ The committee will study the issue of waste in state spending.
▪ The costs of waste disposal are rising all the time.
▪ The government has announced a ban on all imports of toxic waste from abroad.
▪ the icy wastes of Antarctica
▪ Too much waste has been dumped into the North Sea.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ But it was also a mark of his belief that gossip was simply a waste of time.
▪ In the absence of domestic reprocessing facilities, waste is rapidly piling up in storage.
▪ Music became the voice of opposition to the war and its senseless waste of life, and effectively found itself a conscience.
▪ Specially engineered vaults should be constructed so that the waste could be regularly monitored and, if necessary, retrieved.
▪ The Commission has already proposed establishing a compensation fund for damage caused by waste.
▪ The operation made financial and environmental sense by eliminating the need to use a hazardous waste site.
▪ The site is expected to begin receiving waste during the next few weeks.
II.verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
breath
▪ You know it and so do I. So don't waste your breath!
▪ Was there any point in even wasting her breath trying to convince him?
▪ Besides, something told her she'd be wasting her breath.
chance
▪ In a lively first half Paul Wilkinson wasted a good chance at the far post after 33 minutes.
▪ If you do waste time the chances are good that your debtor will go under and you will get nothing.
effort
▪ They did not want to waste their time, effort, money and future chances in taking on an impregnable President.
▪ As processes improve, it cuts out much of the wasted effort and rework, thus enhancing productivity.
▪ He wasted no mental effort on the problem, for this morning he had more important matters on his mind.
▪ They build wasted time and effort into the very fabric of the organisation.
▪ What a ridiculously wasted effort this was, Bill.
▪ Traveling takes not only time but money, and wasted travel effort is demoralizing and damages the entire research effort.
energy
▪ Try to keep mealtimes positive and relaxed and don't waste time and energy forcing your child to eat.
▪ Incumbents busy raising money for the next election are not inclined to waste energy rehashing the rules of the last campaign.
▪ Unlike sharks, they don't waste energy preventing themselves from sinking.
▪ Most businesses today simply burn the emissions in a closed incinerator, wasting energy from the fire.
▪ They cover the construction of new plants, waste reduction, energy and resource conservation and recycling.
▪ I would not augment difficulties by protesting against them, as this only led to failure and wasted energy.
▪ He had a remote manner and didn't waste an atom of energy talking to anyone on the set except Zimmer.
▪ If disappointed, though, she wasted no energy on self-pity.
life
▪ Just don't waste yer life on worries, son.
▪ We can not afford to waste another life.
▪ I had wasted my life and Francis's.
▪ Without a plan you will end up going in circles and wasting your life away.
▪ Michael: Do you think he wasted his life and his talent?
▪ Such wasted lives, such terrible humiliations.
▪ There may be a feeling of having wasted life, with less hope of a new beginning.
▪ The whole world seems to be depressed, and in our need to escape, we are wasting our lives away.
lot
▪ Each search engine has its own quirks to lean-otherwise you'il waste a lot of time weeding through poor results.
▪ You need to be sensible about buying components for stock though, or you will probably just waste a lot of money.
▪ Insufficient knowledge of the latter can waste a lot of money.
▪ Any styling effort applied to sopping wet hair is usually unnecessary and wastes a lot of time.
minutes
▪ Any more than that I wasted five minutes reading his articles?
▪ I've just wasted ten minutes trying to listen to a man's chest.
▪ Gazzer wasted twenty minutes on the sea front waiting for a bus to take him up as far as the Leisure Centre.
▪ She was angry they had wasted the precious minutes on stupid small talk.
money
▪ You need to be sensible about buying components for stock though, or you will probably just waste a lot of money.
▪ We told him he was wasting money.
▪ Insufficient knowledge of the latter can waste a lot of money.
▪ Normal government budgets encourage managers to waste money.
▪ The Government always says how careful it is not to waste taxpayers' money.
▪ Failed projects waste money that might have been better spent elsewhere.
▪ Don't waste time and money on house surveys until these questions have been examined thoroughly.
▪ The answer, if not excuse, is that wrestling might have wasted away without his money.
opportunity
▪ Voice over Derby had one more chance to balance the books but Paul Kitson wasted a glorious opportunity by blasting wide.
▪ They pointed to the wasted opportunities.
▪ Not to mention wasted opportunity for the thousands of amputees better deserving of such an opportunity.
▪ The campaign does not want to waste the opportunity.
▪ All the other matches ended in draws but Nottinghamshire wasted an opportunity to go top of the table at Lord's.
▪ They paid dearly for wasting goalscoring opportunities.
▪ Then Wayne Bullimore wasted a great opportunity for Barnsley after he beat Gittens.
space
▪ Not much compared with a redundant commercial package wasting shelf space.
▪ But what impressed me most was the enormous amount of sheer wasted space everywhere I happened to glance.
▪ The last point could be put right, wasting more space, by adding a potential link field to every record.
▪ The result is vast amounts of wasted space.
▪ This book is not big enough to waste extra space writing out such a number.
talent
▪ Elizabeth: No, I don't, and I get very cross when people say that he wasted his talent.
▪ We wasted a source of talent and got Soviet-trained bureaucrats who had no idea what to do.
▪ Just because he went to Hollywood and was paid a lot of money doesn't mean he was wasting his talent.
▪ But because he was so likable and seemed to be wasting so much talent, teachers and counselors tried to help.
▪ How he'd changed and refused to go on and now was wasting his talent.
time
▪ So long as we learn something from every mistake we make, time hasn't been wasted.
▪ My fear that she would not recognize me was time wasted.
▪ Everything about her suggested that she had lots to do and no time to waste.
▪ Even with many processors working in parallel, much time is wasted waiting for sequential operations to complete.
▪ Presumably not much time will be wasted with recriminations since Wimbledon got those out of the way when they sacked Egil Olsen.
▪ A lot of otherwise productive time is being wasted debating the merits of each game.
▪ However I do not call that time wasted.
▪ There was no more time to waste.
■ VERB
afford
▪ He couldn't afford to waste even a minute of his allocated fifteen.
▪ We can not afford to waste another life.
▪ The current was taking the two boats down towards the rocks, so Harry Pascoe couldn't afford to waste time.
▪ I certainly couldn't afford to waste petrol chasing rainbows as far as Leeds and back.
▪ Still, since time was at a premium, she couldn't afford to waste it admiring her surroundings.
▪ In their impoverished mountain habitat, they can not afford to waste anything.
▪ Nevertheless, she can't afford to waste the earlier encounters.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
don't waste your breath
▪ Save your breath. He won't listen.
waste/solid/organic/vegetable etc matter
▪ After all, it eventually produces waste matter.
▪ Because if they didn't, then all solid matter would simply turn to vapour.
▪ It tells you just about how much organic matter is present.
▪ It was the only solid matter they would meet this side of Jupiterstill two hundred million miles away.
▪ Some organic matter is needed in order to produce nice specimens.
▪ The quantity needed may, however, vary according to the quantity of organic matter in the raw water.
▪ Urban refuse is 75 percent organic matter.
▪ You can improve your soil by adding organic matter.
wasted journey/trip/effort etc
▪ As processes improve, it cuts out much of the wasted effort and rework, thus enhancing productivity.
▪ By providing clear goals and objectives, it minimises frustration and wasted effort. 4.
▪ If no-one answered soon he would have to chalk it up as a wasted trip, and Montgomery would not be amused.
▪ It could save you a lot of wasted effort and money.
▪ Not a wasted journey, after all, but she was anxious to carry on.
▪ Not that it was a completely wasted trip, what with the hardware store right next door.
▪ Pembrooke had a wasted journey to Downpatrick yesterday.
▪ What a ridiculously wasted effort this was, Bill.
wasting asset
▪ My feeling, for what it's worth, is that they should be regarded as wasting assets.
wasting disease/illness
▪ A preacher, victim of a wasting illness, would refer in the pulpit to his forthcoming demise without shocking his congregation.
▪ Children have been born deformed and there are fears of genetic defects; many adults are suffering from wasting diseases.
▪ She will host the surprise get-together tomorrow as a thank you to the victims of a fatal muscle wasting disease.
▪ There is not much point in weighing less but looking as if you are suffering from some wasting disease.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Bill wastes all his money on beer and cigarettes.
▪ Don't leave the light on - you're wasting electricity.
▪ I wasted 40 minutes waiting for a bus this morning.
▪ I must have wasted two whole hours trying to fix this machine.
▪ Let's not waste any more time on this.
▪ Letting the water run while you brush your teeth wastes water.
▪ One of the men threatened to waste the bank teller if he didn't get the money.
▪ Sometimes she feels she's wasted her life.
▪ Stop wasting time. We have to finish this by five o'clock.
▪ The school kitchen wastes an awful lot of food.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Back in the United States, Alvin wasted no time in proposing ways of doing that on future modern dance tours.
▪ By fencing money into line items, in other words, we waste billions of dollars every year.
▪ He had a remote manner and didn't waste an atom of energy talking to anyone on the set except Zimmer.
▪ I felt enough time had been wasted, but time didn't seem to mean anything to Brando.
▪ She wasted no time in writing to me and commanding me to return home at once.
▪ The guests with a morning to waste until the ceremony at two o'clock got under everyone's feet.
▪ You actually hope the time and money spent on insurance will be wasted.
III.adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
disposal
▪ I have never come across a people more obsessed with waste disposal.
▪ Although waste disposal sites are well controlled, there is an ever present risk of pollution.
▪ In recent years, most countries have tightened their standards of waste disposal.
▪ California is not alone in its pessimism over the future of waste disposal.
▪ It helps to get the lymph fluid - a vital part of the body's waste disposal system - flowing.
▪ The subsequent examination of potential releases from processes or waste disposal, together with environmental pathways is brief.
▪ It must also confirm that a suitable waste disposal facility will accept the shipment.
▪ In the process, it had simply underlined the almost intractable dangers of nuclear waste disposal.
ground
▪ Police had covered every piece of waste ground, undergrowth, field, wood.
▪ Tony did as he was told and finally saw the large area of waste ground ahead.
▪ His friend Andre Leota was later found shot dead on waste ground.
▪ Example Charles is the owner of a piece of waste ground adjacent to his house.
▪ He has used the waste ground to dump old cars, which he intends to renovate.
▪ The waste ground is separated from a park by some old fencing which is in need of repair.
▪ Their favourite walk was down across the waste ground along Deptford Creek.
▪ On his way across the waste ground he tripped over some rusty car parts and was injured.
heat
▪ The idea of recovering waste heat from air or water, and using it to heat buildings cheaply, is very attractive.
▪ They also produce less waste heat, so complex and expensive cooling systems are not needed.
▪ Wider use of waste heat will be encouraged and a 15 percent saving on the government energy bill sought by 1995.
▪ As electronic components become smaller and more powerful it becomes increasingly important to extract waste heat from them.
land
▪ In 1875 and 1876 the Corporation purchased 3,000 acres of the open waste lands of the forest manors.
▪ The wound would immediately heal, the waste land become green, and the saving hero himself be installed as king.
▪ Punctured plastic bags blow across the adjacent plots of waste land.
▪ He promised to plant grasses on waste land.
▪ This place used to be what you could call a natural piece of waste land.
▪ Caravans stand on muddy plots of waste land.
▪ The market stretched across waste land scribbled out by tracks of vehicles.
▪ Lying amid waste land to one side of the village, there rose the jutting silhouette of a cyclopean wall.
material
▪ Thrush also arises as a means of unloading waste material from the body.
▪ Background: A New Jersey law banned the importation of waste materials from outside the state.
▪ However we want mandatory standards and specifications introduced to ensure appropriate waste materials are used where available, rather than higher grade primaries.
▪ Like anaerobic digestion, the aerobic processing of waste material produces methane which can be used as a biogas fuel.
▪ Even drawing up proposals for recycling waste materials in Britain requires ten sub-committees.
▪ Of course, this would be kept hidden under waste material.
▪ The waters off North Carolina host numerous fish, a potential biological vector for transport of waste materials.
▪ Some make combs of their waste material on which they cultivate tiny fungal mushrooms.
matter
▪ Stop feeding the fish, to cut down on the waste matter being produced.
▪ After all, it eventually produces waste matter.
▪ They do not feed on fish excreta and waste matter.
▪ He says that the travellers themselves are doing some clearing up, though some waste matter will be left behind.
paper
▪ Pitch fibre pipes are made from waste paper and other fibres soaked in pitch.
▪ She wiped it frantically on a piece of waste paper, and threw the crumpled paper as far away as she could.
▪ Was lying beside dustbins and boxes of waste paper, just inside the locked gates to the yard.
▪ The success of the system depends essentially on the segregation of waste paper for separate collection.
▪ Accumulations of waste paper are being collected and put into red polythene liners which are collected by the cleaners.
▪ Lily put them, unhesitatingly, in the waste paper bin.
▪ I have not found one cigarette end or one piece of waste paper.
▪ William I mean-today's newspapers will be lining tomorrow's waste paper bins.
product
▪ It is the biggest single concept, many others being devoted to using methane gas at waste product dumps.
▪ The algae consumed waste products from the reef and under the intense artificial sunlight they proliferated in stringy green mats.
▪ The nitric acid solution is then mixed with an organic solvent and the uranium and plutonium are separated from the waste products.
▪ It is excreted in the urine as a waste product of creatine. 194.
▪ But this alone will not purify your water of waste products that are invisible to the eye.
▪ Elimination Elimination is the process by which waste products are excreted from the body.
▪ A two-way hatch facilitates the serving of carefully calculated meals and the removal of waste products in the appropriate receptacles!
▪ During the summer these may include small animals known as dinoflagellates, which produce toxic waste products.
water
▪ This could help solve one of the textile industry's biggest problems, removing colouring and chemicals from waste water.
▪ The waste water would be drained away through a 2, 000-foot tunnel, 150 feet below the river level.
▪ What happens to the overflowing water and also to the waste water?
▪ Urine is processed separately through a more stringent filtration process than the waste water.
▪ At the same time the air pump removes waste water and air from the separate condenser thus maintaining a vacuum in it.
▪ Some of the programmes developed have succeeded in removing up to 98 percent of the solids content of waste water.
▪ Even waste water from water changes is not allowed to go into our sewage system during this period.
▪ For alkaline waste water, higher concentrations can be determined by using appropriately stronger acid for titration.
yarn
▪ Unravel waste yarn after work has been removed from machine.
▪ The only patterns available were for hand knitting and no one had mentioned mock rib or using waste yarn.
▪ Cast on using the weaving brushes or waste yarn, then change to main yarn. 3.
▪ A scheme to measure the waste yarn has been introduced.
▪ Thread with waste yarn and knit 4 rows on the main bed only.
▪ I took the garment pieces off on waste yarn.
▪ Remove waste yarn, join second shoulder.
▪ Release waste yarn and hook up to jacket front in the usual way.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
don't waste your breath
▪ Save your breath. He won't listen.
lay waste sth
waste/solid/organic/vegetable etc matter
▪ After all, it eventually produces waste matter.
▪ Because if they didn't, then all solid matter would simply turn to vapour.
▪ It tells you just about how much organic matter is present.
▪ It was the only solid matter they would meet this side of Jupiterstill two hundred million miles away.
▪ Some organic matter is needed in order to produce nice specimens.
▪ The quantity needed may, however, vary according to the quantity of organic matter in the raw water.
▪ Urban refuse is 75 percent organic matter.
▪ You can improve your soil by adding organic matter.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ a waste tank
▪ a sewage waste pipe
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Beyond the rearing buildings the waste ground was empty.
▪ In 1875 and 1876 the Corporation purchased 3,000 acres of the open waste lands of the forest manors.
▪ Inefficient recovery practices have left metal-rich waste dumps which have often been levelled or used as roadstone.
▪ Nor are waste dumps the only things being shaken-up.
▪ The waste form and the cannister should act as barriers for 1000 years each.
▪ The waters off North Carolina host numerous fish, a potential biological vector for transport of waste materials.
Related phrases:
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Waste

Waste \Waste\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Wasted; p. pr. & vb. n. Wasting.] [OE. wasten, OF. waster, guaster, gaster, F. g[^a]ter to spoil, L. vastare to devastate, to lay waste, fr. vastus waste, desert, uncultivated, ravaged, vast, but influenced by a kindred German word; cf. OHG. wuosten, G. w["u]sten, AS. w[=e]stan. See Waste, a.]

  1. To bring to ruin; to devastate; to desolate; to destroy.

    Thou barren ground, whom winter's wrath hath wasted, Art made a mirror to behold my plight.
    --Spenser.

    The Tiber Insults our walls, and wastes our fruitful grounds.
    --Dryden.

  2. To wear away by degrees; to impair gradually; to diminish by constant loss; to use up; to consume; to spend; to wear out.

    Until your carcasses be wasted in the wilderness.
    --Num. xiv. 3

  3. O, were I able To waste it all myself, and leave ye none!
    --Milton.

    Here condemned To waste eternal days in woe and pain.
    --Milton.

    Wasted by such a course of life, the infirmities of age daily grew on him.
    --Robertson.

    3. To spend unnecessarily or carelessly; to employ prodigally; to expend without valuable result; to apply to useless purposes; to lavish vainly; to squander; to cause to be lost; to destroy by scattering or injury.

    The younger son gathered all together, and . . . wasted his substance with riotous living.
    --Luke xv. 13.

    Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
    --Gray.

  4. (Law) To damage, impair, or injure, as an estate, voluntarily, or by suffering the buildings, fences, etc., to go to decay.

    Syn: To squander; dissipate; lavish; desolate.

Waste

Waste \Waste\, a. [OE. wast, OF. wast, from L. vastus, influenced by the kindred German word; cf. OHG. wuosti, G. w["u]st, OS. w?sti, D. woest, AS. w[=e]ste. Cf. Vast.]

  1. Desolate; devastated; stripped; bare; hence, dreary; dismal; gloomy; cheerless.

    The dismal situation waste and wild.
    --Milton.

    His heart became appalled as he gazed forward into the waste darkness of futurity.
    --Sir W. Scott.

  2. Lying unused; unproductive; worthless; valueless; refuse; rejected; as, waste land; waste paper.

    But his waste words returned to him in vain.
    --Spenser.

    Not a waste or needless sound, Till we come to holier ground.
    --Milton.

    Ill day which made this beauty waste.
    --Emerson.

  3. Lost for want of occupiers or use; superfluous. And strangled with her waste fertility. --Milton. Waste gate, a gate by which the superfluous water of a reservoir, or the like, is discharged. Waste paper. See under Paper. Waste pipe, a pipe for carrying off waste, or superfluous, water or other fluids. Specifically:

    1. (Steam Boilers) An escape pipe. See under Escape.

    2. (Plumbing) The outlet pipe at the bottom of a bowl, tub, sink, or the like. Waste steam.

      1. Steam which escapes the air.

      2. Exhaust steam.

        Waste trap, a trap for a waste pipe, as of a sink.

Waste

Waste \Waste\, n. [OE. waste; cf. the kindred AS. w[=e]sten, OHG. w[=o]st[=i], wuost[=i], G. w["u]ste. See Waste, a. & v.]

  1. The act of wasting, or the state of being wasted; a squandering; needless destruction; useless consumption or expenditure; devastation; loss without equivalent gain; gradual loss or decrease, by use, wear, or decay; as, a waste of property, time, labor, words, etc. ``Waste . . . of catel and of time.''
    --Chaucer.

    For all this waste of wealth loss of blood.
    --Milton.

    He will never . . . in the way of waste, attempt us again.
    --Shak.

    Little wastes in great establishments, constantly occurring, may defeat the energies of a mighty capital.
    --L. Beecher.

  2. That which is wasted or desolate; a devastated, uncultivated, or wild country; a deserted region; an unoccupied or unemployed space; a dreary void; a desert; a wilderness. ``The wastes of Nature.''
    --Emerson.

    All the leafy nation sinks at last, And Vulcan rides in triumph o'er the waste.
    --Dryden.

    The gloomy waste of waters which bears his name is his tomb and his monument.
    --Bancroft.

  3. That which is of no value; worthless remnants; refuse. Specifically: Remnants of cops, or other refuse resulting from the working of cotton, wool, hemp, and the like, used for wiping machinery, absorbing oil in the axle boxes of railway cars, etc.

  4. (Law) Spoil, destruction, or injury, done to houses, woods, fences, lands, etc., by a tenant for life or for years, to the prejudice of the heir, or of him in reversion or remainder.

    Note: Waste is voluntary, as by pulling down buildings; or permissive, as by suffering them to fall for want of necessary repairs. Whatever does a lasting damage to the freehold is a waste.
    --Blackstone.

  5. (Mining) Old or abandoned workings, whether left as vacant space or filled with refuse.

  6. (Phys. Geog.) Material derived by mechanical and chemical erosion from the land, carried by streams to the sea.

    Syn: Prodigality; diminution; loss; dissipation; destruction; devastation; havoc; desolation; ravage.

Waste

Waste \Waste\ (w[=a]st), v. i.

  1. To be diminished; to lose bulk, substance, strength, value, or the like, gradually; to be consumed; to dwindle; to grow less; -- commonly used with away.

    The time wasteth night and day.
    --Chaucer.

    The barrel of meal shall not waste.
    --1 Kings xvii. 14.

    But man dieth, and wasteth away.
    --Job xiv. 10.

  2. (Sporting) To procure or sustain a reduction of flesh; -- said of a jockey in preparation for a race, etc.

Related phrases:
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
waste

c.1200, "desolate regions," from Anglo-French and Old North French wast "waste, damage, destruction; wasteland, moor" (Old French gast), from Latin vastum, neuter of vastus "waste" (see waste (v.)).\n

\nReplaced or merged with Old English westen, woesten "a desert, wilderness," from the Latin word. Meanings "consumption, depletion," also "useless expenditure" are from c.1300; sense of "refuse matter" is attested from c.1400. Waste basket first recorded 1850.

waste

c.1200, "devastate, ravage, ruin," from Anglo-French and Old North French waster "to waste, squander, spoil, ruin" (Old French gaster; Modern French gâter), altered (by influence of Frankish *wostjan) from Latin vastare "lay waste," from vastus "empty, desolate, waste" (see vain). Related: wasted; wasting.\n

\nThe Germanic word also existed in Old English as westan "to lay waste, ravage." Spanish gastar, Italian guastare also are from Germanic. Meaning "to lose strength or health; pine; weaken" is attested from c.1300; the sense of "squander, spend or consume uselessly" is first recorded mid-14c.; meaning "to kill" is from 1964. Waste not, want not attested from 1778.

waste

c.1300, of land, "desolate, uncultivated," from Anglo-French and Old North French waste (Old French gaste), from Latin vastus (see waste (v.)). From c.1400 as "superfluous, excess;" 1670s as "unfit for use." Waste-paper attested from 1580s.

Wiktionary
waste

Etymology 1 n. 1 A waste land; an uninhabited desolate region; a wilderness or desert. 2 A place that has been lay waste or destroyed. 3 A large tract of uncultivated land. 4 A vast expanse of water. 5 A disused mine or part of one. 6 The action or progress of wasting; extravagant consumption or ineffectual use. 7 Large abundance of something, specifically without it being used. 8 Gradual loss or decay. 9 A decaying of the body by disease; atrophy. 10 (context rare English) destruction or devastation caused by war or natural disasters; See "to lay waste" 11 excess of material, useless by-products or damaged, unsaleable products; garbage; rubbish. 12 excrement 13 (context legal English) A cause of action which may be brought by the owner of a future interest in property against the current owner of that property to prevent the current owner from degrading the value or character of the property, either intentionally or through neglect. 14 (cx geology English) Material derived by mechanical and chemical erosion from the land, carried by streams to the se

  1. Etymology 2

    a. (label en now rare) uncultivated, uninhabited. Etymology 3

    v

  2. 1 (context transitive now rare English) To devastate or destroy. 2 (context transitive English) To wear away by degrees; to impair gradually; to diminish by constant loss; to use up; to consume; to spend; to wear out. 3 (context transitive English) To squander (money or resources) uselessly; to spend (time) idly.

Related phrases:
WordNet
waste

  1. adj. disposed of as useless; "waste paper" [syn: cast-off(a), discarded, junked, scrap(a)]

  2. located in a dismal or remote area; desolate; "a desert island"; "a godforsaken wilderness crossroads"; "a wild stretch of land"; "waste places" [syn: desert, godforsaken, wild]

waste

  1. n. any materials unused and rejected as worthless or unwanted; "they collect the waste once a week"; "much of the waste material is carried off in the sewers" [syn: waste material, waste matter, waste product]

  2. useless or profitless activity; using or expending or consuming thoughtlessly or carelessly; "if the effort brings no compensating gain it is a waste"; "mindless dissipation of natural resources" [syn: wastefulness, dissipation]

  3. the trait of wasting resources; "a life characterized by thriftlessness and waste"; "the wastefulness of missed opportunities" [syn: thriftlessness, wastefulness]

  4. an uninhabited wilderness that is worthless for cultivation; "the barrens of central Africa"; "the trackless wastes of the desert" [syn: barren, wasteland]

  5. (law) reduction in the value of an estate caused by act or neglect [syn: permissive waste]

waste

  1. v. spend thoughtlessly; throw away; "He wasted his inheritance on his insincere friends"; "You squandered the opportunity to get and advanced degree" [syn: blow, squander] [ant: conserve]

  2. use inefficiently or inappropriately; "waste heat"; "waste a joke on an unappreciative audience"

  3. get rid of; "We waste the dirty water by channeling it into the sewer"

  4. run off as waste; "The water wastes back into the ocean" [syn: run off]

  5. get rid of (someone who may be a threat) by killing; "The mafia liquidated the informer"; "the double agent was neutralized" [syn: neutralize, neutralise, liquidate, knock off, do in]

  6. spend extravagantly; "waste not, want not" [syn: consume, squander, ware]

  7. lose vigor, health, or flesh, as through grief; "After her husband died, she just pined away" [syn: pine away, languish]

  8. cause to grow thin or weak; "The treatment emaciated him" [syn: emaciate, macerate]

  9. devastate or ravage; "The enemy lay waste to the countryside after the invasion" [syn: lay waste to, devastate, desolate, ravage, scourge]

  10. waste away; "Political prisoners are wasting away in many prisons all over the world" [syn: rot]

Related phrases:
Wikipedia
Waste (play)

Waste is a play by the English author Harley Granville Barker. It exists in two wholly different versions, from 1906 and 1927. The first version was refused a license by the Lord Chamberlain and had to be performed privately by the Stage Society in 1907; the second was finally staged in public at the Westminster Theatre in 1936.

Waste

Waste and wastes are unwanted or unusable materials. Waste is any substance which is discarded after primary use, or it is worthless, defective and of no use.

The term is often subjective (because what is waste to one need not necessarily be waste to another) and sometimes objectively inaccurate (for example, to send scrap metals to a landfill is to inaccurately classify them as waste, because they are recyclable). Examples include municipal solid waste (household trash/refuse), hazardous waste, wastewater (such as sewage, which contains bodily wastes ( feces and urine) and surface runoff), radioactive waste, and others.

Waste (disambiguation)

Waste is unwanted or undesired material.

Waste, WASTE or W.A.S.T.E. may also refer to:

  • Waste of energy: the opposite of energy conservation
  • Metabolic waste is any unwanted substances that are expelled from living organisms.
  • Waste (law), a legal term concerning property
  • Waste of time
  • as a proper name
    • Waste (play), a 1906 play by Harley Granville-Barker
    • W.A.S.T.E. (We Await Silent Tristero's Empire), the underground postal service in Thomas Pynchon's 1966 novel The Crying of Lot 49
    • WASTE, a piece of software for establishing friend-to-friend (dark P2P) file sharing networks
    • WASTE text engine, a multilingual text-handling library for the Mac OS
    • W.A.S.T.E., the official fan club for the rock band Radiohead
    • W.A.S.T.E. (band), an American band
    • "Waste", a song from the album Billy Breathes by the rock band Phish.
    • "Waste", a song by Seether from Finding Beauty in Negative Spaces
    • "Waste", a song by Staind from Break the Cycle
Waste (law)

Waste is a term used in the law of real property to describe a cause of action that can be brought in court to address a change in condition of real property brought about by a current tenant that damages or destroys the value of that property. A lawsuit for waste can be brought against a life tenant or lessee of a leasehold estate, either by a current landlord or by the owner of a vested future interest. The holder of an executory interest, however, has no standing to enforce an action for waste, since his future interest is not vested. There are several different kinds of waste under the law.

Related phrases:

Usage examples of "waste".

The SEC was already investigating one accounting firm, Arthur Andersen, which represented both Waste Management and Sunbeam, to determine how things had gone astray.

The products resulting from the waste of the tissues are constantly being poured into the blood, and, as we have seen, the blood being everywhere full of corpuscles, which, like all living things, die and decay, the products of their decomposition accumulate in every part of the circulatory system.

While increasing the discharge of noxious elements accumulated in the system, it promptly arrests the wastes arising from debility, and the unusual breaking down of the cells incident to quick decline.

The accumulation of these waste materials irritates the cells and causes them to cry out with pain.

That employment should be wanted for the people, while one-third of Ireland is as much waste as the woods in Canada, and the rest badly cultivated, not affording half labour, is a strange anomaly.

Eric sometimes beat the walls with his fists or shrieked when he was denied a game or treat, and since he wasted his own allotment, his mother often had to refuse his requests for part of hers.

After passing through the catalytic reactors, the rare hydrogen allotrope was siphoned off, while the waste gases spilled back out from the hot stacks.

That being the ideal of Anarchism, its economic arrangements must consist of voluntary productive and distributive associations, gradually developing into free communism, as the best means of producing with the least waste of human energy.

Gage shot him a furious, anguished look, but Meriel wasted no time in grasping his leg and pulling it straight.

Montpelier, then fissioned in a purposely ugly way in such a way as to create like hellacious amounts of highly poisonous radioactive wastes, which are mixed with heavy water and specially heated-zirconium-piped through special heavily guarded heated zirconium pipes back down to Montpelier as raw materiel for the massive poisons needed for toxic lithiumization and waste-intenseness and annular fusion.

Depletion of the blood by drastic and poisonous medicines, such as antimony and mercurials, hemorrhages and blood-letting, syphilis, excessive mental or physical labor, as well as a too early use and abuse of the sexual organs, all tend to waste the blood, reduce the tone of the system, and develop scrofula.

In all the world there is not a human being who has not contributed something to the awful cost and the loss due to the destruction of property, the stopping of industry, the waste of energy and the curtailment of human endeavor in the interest of civilization, and the effects which the struggle has had upon the world cannot even be approximated in dollars and cents.

As an arrowy serpent, pursuing the form Of an elephant, bursts through the brakes of the waste.

Bin Ladin and Atef wasted no time in assigning the Hamburg group to the most ambitious operation yet planned by al Qaeda.

He starts with a cell as they do, grows to maturity by assimilative organization and endowing transformation of foreign nutriment as they do, his life is a continuous process of waste and repair of tissues as theirs is, and there is, from the scientific point of view, no conceivable reason why he should not be subject to physical death as they are.