The Poison Waste is a large, marshy area of Tirannwn, south of Isafdar. It is located on the western coast of Gielinor. Needless to say, the name adequately describes the deadly, toxic nature of the sludge permeating this area. The sludge slowly makes its way up, killing all who touch it. A mass of corpses can be found throughout the northern coast, having failed to escape from the toxic sludge.
The fastest way to physically go inside the Poison Waste is by using a fairy ring (code DLR), which will teleport players to a small island in the swamp (indicated by the travel icon on the map). This island is used in the quest Fairy Tale III - Orks Rift to unlock the queen's hideout and for unlocking the music track Exposed.
It is revealed in The Path of Glouphrie that the poison waste originates from Arposandra, who made poisonous chemicals with their experiments and pumped the waste to the surface. Once the city of Prifddinas is regrown after Plague's End, this poison is later revealed to be responsible for corrupting fragments of Seren (the largest being the Corrupted Seren Stone in the Hefin Cathedral).
The area's only significant uses to date are the collection of sulphur on its mucky shores, the location where coal-tar can be collected from the sludge itself and the incandescent wisp colony to the south. The sulphur is used during the Regicide quest, and the coal-tar is used in both Regicide and Mourning's End Part I. Players also visit the waste in Plague's End, where the player navigates the sludge-filled swamp in order to find Lady Hefin, one of the eight elders of Prifddinas.
The fact that the sludge consists of coal-tar suggests that coal is used in the process of modifying Anima Mundi, as is occurring in Arposandra. Then, somewhere in the process, the coal is converted into the waste product of coal-tar and is pumped to the surface.