Waste Management, Waste Indicators and the Relationship with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

Waste management plays an important role in sustainable development. The innovative management of waste results in minimizing the adverse effects of climate change, and social and economic sustainability. The creation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the United Nations in 2015 was an important step toward environmental sustainability, whereby the 17 goals focus on strengthening the means of implementing and revitalizing the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development. This research paper applies a systematic literature review using the PRISMA methodology to analyze different published research papers and research reports mainly focused on waste management and its relationship with the SDGs. This paper extensively discusses the context of waste management, SDGs, waste indicators in SDGs, and the relationship between SDGs and waste management. This paper also widely discusses the aspects of waste management regarding SDGs. The results are further divided into two sub-categories, including descriptive results, which elaborate the different approaches that are used to review the literature for this paper, and thematic results, which include the key results and discussions of different aspects of this paper. The analysis of different published research papers and research reports mainly focuses on waste management and its relationship with the SDGs. This study presents a discussion of (1) the detailed context of waste management about SDGs, (2) the waste indicators in SDGs and (3) the relationship between waste management and SDGs. This study suggests future possible areas of research by extending the regional boundaries, increasing the number of papers, focusing on more specific SDG goals and targets and studying case studies based on the specific targets and indicators.