State-of-the-Art and Current Status of Municipal Solid Waste Management on a Global Scale

The household or other urban wastes are presented as a danger disguised as a nuisance or residues, and considered as one of the most important problems to be solved in the modern communities as the economy, the health. Thus the correct management and without notable nuisance of municipal or urban waste was presented in the last 30 years as an imperative necessity with the evolution of modern life, the rural exodus and especially with the emergence of many ecological problems with a close human health relationship. It is a crucial problem requiring an ultimate resolution. When we talk about waste management, we talk about collection, characterization, landfill and especially the importance of waste characterization; and this in an approach of setting up adequate treatment systems and adapted valorization, mainly with the recycling of valuable materials, composting and energy production by biogas or incineration. Thus and considering the importance of the organic fraction in the waste and its humidity, and the great need of poor and degraded soils in organic matter, composting is a priori an adequate solution and of major interest for developing countries, and to a lesser degree for industrialized countries. The success of these treatment technologies requires a fundamental knowledge of the bio-physical–chemical nature of the waste. As a prerequisite to any industrial composting project, the logic of the treatment of a process acquired after a parameterization based on the kind of the waste is essential. The knowledge of a set of parameters of the composition and the physico-chemical features of the waste is necessary to characterize the modalities of their treatment in a composting chain. The good criteria of development and success of composting, anaerobic digestion and incineration impose in particular the knowledge of the granulometric composition of the organic fractions and those inert, undesirable and toxic to be eliminated, the moisture of waste, the ratio carbon/nitrogen, and the contents in metallic trace elements. In terms of conclusion, the main aim of the waste management is to limit the nuisances, and the risks related to their dangerous, fermentable or cumbersome character, which would cause negative sanitary and environmental impacts. Thus, the elimination of waste has given way to its material (recycling) or organic (composting, methanization) and energetic (incineration) recovery, which allows to reduce the impact of its discharges. Waste management includes collection, transport, recovery and disposal and, more broadly, any activity involved in organizing the management of waste from its production to its final treatment, including trading or brokerage activities and the supervision of all these operations.