The situation got even more severe through the increase of waste amounts and complexity during the industrialization. Hence technical solutions were developed that hindered these emissions to form or get into the environment.
But this still left one final issue which became especially clear with the oil crises in 1973: Our resources are not infinite and we need to find ways to use them more efficiently and recycle them. The “circular economy” concept was born. Together with the circular economy concept the waste hierarchy was introduced; according to which we should prioritise following strategies when dealing with waste:

1. Reduce: try not to produce waste by adapting to efficient and sufficient life-styles and manufacturing processes
2. Reuse/Repair: don’t use single-use products but multiple-use products and when possible repair before buying new products. Producers have to make this possible by implementing a product-design that is easy to re-assemble
3. Recycle: collect and sort waste according to their material and produce secondary resources also called recyclates
   These three are the best options and thus are also referred to as the 3Rs in an international context.
4. Incineration with energy recovery: Incinerate waste but use the produced energy in form of warmth or electricity. However, incineration plants should be equipped with flue gas cleaning systems ensuring no toxic fumes such as carcinogenic dioxins and furans to enter the atmosphere.
5. Disposal
   a. Incinerations without energy recovery: Burn the waste in facilities that have a flue gas cleaning system
   b. Landfill: dispose waste but the disposal sites should include multi-barrier concepts that hinder emissions to enter the environment

What not to do: Open dumping, open burning or discarding it into river or other water bodies as all these are harmful to the environment.