The paper describes the U.S. Navy's shipboard environmental challenges and a few of its research programs for meeting its needs for solid and liquid waste treatment. This objective is particularly important in environmentally sensitive areas, such as the Mediterranean Sea, where fleet deployment time is significant. Prohibitions on ocean dumping and anticipated requirements on effluent discharge quality have led the Navy to continue the research, development, and demonstration of shipboard systems to treat their unpreventable wastes. For solid, non-hazardous wastes, post-minimization efforts are geared toward long-term development of systems to thermally pyrolyze and oxidize the wastes into significantly reduced volume and weight.