Solid waste management: Scope and the challenge of sustainability

Abstract

Solid waste management (SWM) is an integral part of an environmental management system. SWM approaches have been modified into a more practical and effective option to establish sustainability based on the “reduce”, “reuse”, and “recycle” (3R) principles. This review provides an overview of a wide range of existing SWM strategies with the following key objectives: (i) to comprehensively describe current technologies, strategic innovations, and monitoring tools, (ii) to provide an overview of prevailing waste management scenarios across different countries, (iii) to identify the roles of life cycle assessment (LCA) and other modeling tools in SWM, and (iv) to showcase feasible approaches for sustainable recycling and utilization of solid wastes. The current review finds that geographical positions and economic status of nations are important to dictate waste characteristics. A number of economic and LCA models have been described to facilitate future workers vis-à-vis organizations for the selection of appropriate waste management algorithms and for the evaluation of their eventual performance. In addition, this paper showcases various innovative solutions that have been reported for the achievement of smart and sustainable waste management plans in many countries.