An overview of municipal wastes

Recently, waste management became a tremendous global concern due to the high rate of waste materials production. This rate leads to wastes accumulation in the environment without proper management or valorization. Consequently, more problems appeared to the surface, such as global warming and other dangerous phenomena on the whole ecosystem. For instance, in 2018, the total municipal solid waste production was 292.4 million tons, only 38.2 wt.% of which were managed mainly through mechanical recycling and composting. The remaining amounts were incinerated for energy recovery (11.8 wt.%) and landfilled (50 wt.%, which accounts for 146 million tons). The massive amounts of landfilled wastes consume large land areas; therefore, more waste valorization techniques should be applied to achieve a zero waste point in the circular economy system. This chapter defines and classifies solid wastes according to their sources and compositions. It also discusses the types of recyclable, hazardous, and hard-to-control wastes besides briefly discussing the efforts to manage them. Additionally, waste production statistics of different countries are presented to give a real figure about waste amounts and emphasize the urgent need for their management. Finally, the circular economy practices and business models that consider the socioeconomic impact on the whole economy are discussed.