A comprehensive review of sustainable hazardous waste management: Generation patterns, storage safety, transportation...

Accelerated industrialization and urbanization have led to a continuous increase in the generation of global hazardous waste (HW), presenting significant threats to environmental integrity and public health. This review systematically examines sustainable HW management issues, integrating critical life cycle stages of HW-including generation patterns, storage safety, transportation risks, and treatment technologies-to address existing gaps in the literature. Previous reviews fail to provide a comprehensive analysis of emerging challenges, including AI-driven predictive modeling, multimodal transportation optimization, and resource-oriented disposal technologies for complex waste streams. This review initially analyzes HW generation patterns, focusing on industrial sources, and predictive models that utilize socioeconomic variables, while emphasizing the need for improving machine learning accuracy. It further evaluates the vulnerability of HW storage infrastructure, including leakage risks from landfills and tailings ponds. The study quantifies the transportation risks associated with HW and proposes that intelligent route planning and multimodal transport strategies be considered essential for mitigating these risks. Furthermore, a comparison is made of the currently dominant HW treatment technologies (physical-chemical, thermal, biological, and landfill disposal), analyzing their respective advantages, disadvantages, and economic costs. Finally, this review proposes an integrated management framework that emphasizes digitalization, circular economy principles, and climate-resilient policies. This comprehensive study aims to drive the transition towards a resilient and resource-efficient HW management system by integrating technological innovation with sustainable policy design.