Waste management and sustainability: An introduction

Earth’s ability to absorb waste is a major influence on the adaptation of waste-treatment technologies. Landfilling is probably the oldest organized waste-management technology. However, waste management has undergone changes in recent decades, and currently recycling and recovery are a more important focus than landfilling. The organic fraction of municipal solid waste (MSW) is an important consideration, not only because of the quantity generated but also because of its potential negative impacts on environmental and human health. Integrated waste management is a framework for designing and implementing new waste-management systems and for analyzing and optimizing existing systems. Within this framework, both technical and nontechnical components of the management system should be analyzed together. Today a modern integrated waste management that infuses sustainability into all components while considering resource supply and demand is needed.