A transfer station is a building or processing site for the temporary deposition of waste

Waste

Waste is unwanted or useless materials. In biology, waste is any of the many unwanted substances or toxins that are expelled from living organisms, metabolic waste; such as urea, sweat or feces. Litter is waste which has been disposed of improperly...

. Transfer stations are often used as places where local waste collection vehicle

Waste collection vehicle

Garbage truck refers to a truck specially designed to collect small quantities of waste and haul the collected waste to a solid waste treatment facility. Other common names for this type of truck include trash truck and dump truck in the United States, and bin wagon, dustcart, dustbin lorry, bin...

s will deposit their waste cargo prior to loading into larger vehicles. These larger vehicles will transport the waste to the end point of disposal in an incinerator, landfill

Landfill

A landfill site , is a site for the disposal of waste materials by burial and is the oldest form of waste treatment...

, or hazardous waste

Hazardous waste

A hazardous waste is waste that poses substantial or potential threats to public health or the environment. According to the U.S. environmental laws hazardous wastes fall into two major categories: characteristic wastes and listed wastes.Characteristic hazardous wastes are materials that are known...

 facility, or for recycling

Recycling

Recycling is processing used materials into new products to prevent waste of potentially useful materials, reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials, reduce energy usage, reduce air pollution and water pollution by reducing the need for "conventional" waste disposal, and lower greenhouse...

In the future, transfer stations could be equipped with material recovery facilities and with localized mechanical biological treatment systems to remove recyclable items from the waste stream.

See also

• List of solid waste treatment technologies
• Mechanical biological treatment
  Mechanical biological treatment
  A mechanical biological treatment system is a type of waste processing facility that combines a sorting facility with a form of biological treatment such as composting or anaerobic digestion...
  
  
• Solid Waste Association of North America
  Solid Waste Association of North America
  For nearly 50 years, The Solid Waste Association of North America, has been a professional association in the solid waste management field...
  
  
• Proximity principle
  Proximity principle
  - Waste Management :The proximity principle advocates that waste should be disposed of close to the point at which it is generated, thus aiming to achieve responsible self-sufficiency at a regional/or sub regional level...