The rise of antibiotic resistance has transformed once-curable infections into urgent global health threats, leaving hospitals with outbreaks, patients with prolonged illnesses, and doctors with limited therapeutic options. The era of antibiotic resistance is no longer a distant concern; it is a pressing reality demanding innovative solutions. Among emerging alternatives, cold plasma a partially ionized state of matter enriched with reactive species offers a multi-targeted antimicrobial strategy. Unlike conventional antibiotics, cold plasma disrupts bacterial survival through diverse mechanisms, including membrane rupture, protein and nucleic acid damage, and oxidative stress that overwhelms microbial defenses. This review synthesizes current evidence on the mechanisms of cold plasma, the factors influencing its antimicrobial efficacy, and its applications across healthcare, food safety, and environmental protection. In addition, it highlights the synergistic potential of cold plasma when combined with antibiotics, nanomaterials, or bacteriophages to enhance effectiveness against resistant pathogens. While challenges remain regarding safety validation, standardization, and large-scale application, cold plasma represents a promising non-traditional approach to complement existing therapies. This review not only summarizes recent progress but also outlines future directions, emphasizing its potential role in combating antibiotic resistance.

Anaerobic digestion (AD) is one of the most important technologies for converting organic waste into bioenergy, mostly in the form of biogas, and offers a wide range of environmental, economic, and public health benefits. This review provides a detailed description of the process of AD and its key biological phases, namely, hydrolysis, acidogenesis, acetogenesis, and methanogenesis, and emphasizes why microbial consortia are important in the breakdown of organic matter. The review analyzes the different pretreatment methods that enhance substrate digestibility and increase biogas yield, along with the key operational parameters that affect the operation of a process, including operating temperature, organic loading rate (OLR), pH, mixing efficiency, and hydraulic retention time (HRT). Moreover, there are metabolic difficulties associated with the choice of feedstock, feedstock stability, interference by product, and also the economic viability. The scalability and versatility of the technology are evidenced by several case studies used to show successful applications of AD systems in various fields, such as the treatment of olive pomace and livestock waste. Moreover, the inclusion of AD in the circles of the economic system is also deliberated as a good avenue towards the sustainable management of waste. The growing environmental use of this technology is evidenced by the growing innovations in the field, including membrane‐based AD systems to control pathogens and odors. Overall, AD is one of the sustainable solutions to the issues of waste treatment, the production of renewable energy, and the reduction of the impact of climate change on the entire world.