Correlation of municipal solid waste production and treatment with socioeconomic indexes

Abstract

GDP is used as instrument to forecast the generation of municipal solid waste (MSW). However, MSW generation depends also on other social factors. The object of this paper is to examine if GDP can be substituted by another multidimensional index that takes into account not only the economy but also other societal aspects. Furthermore, the paper investigates if there is any correlation between those indexes and MSW practices. To our knowledge, there is yet no similar research. The results show that GDP presents the strongest correlation than the other indexes, namely Human Development Index (HDI), Social Progress Index (SPI) and Sustainable Society Index (SSI) in MSW generation. Still, a significant correlation between HDI, SPI, GDP and MSW management practices is also observed. Interestingly though, that the multidimensional indexes HDI and SPI present better correlation in specific management practices, such as landfilling, incinerating and recycling than the one-dimensional GDP.