Study calls for urgent action to address the risks posed by unsafe disposal practices A major global study of what happens to consumer goods and other engineered products at the end of their useful life has found widespread use of unsafe management and disposal practices and calls for urgent action to address the risks posed to human life and health. The Engineering X Global Review on Safer End of Engineered Life warns that the biggest threat is from the open burning of solid waste which is damaging the health of "tens of millions" of people worldwide but a lack of data means that the true scale of the problem is unknown and more research is urgently needed.