EG37CH11-Vergara ARI 6 October 2012 17:5 Municipal Solid Waste and the Environment: A Global Perspective Sintana E. Vergara1 and George Tchobanoglous2 1Energy and Resources Group, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720-3050; email:
[email protected] 2Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Davis, California 95616; email:
[email protected] Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour. 2012. 37:277–309 Keywords First published online as a Review in Advance on waste governance, climate change, behavior change, reuse and June 28, 2012 recycling, informal sector, electronic waste, solid waste management The Annual Review of Environment and Resources is online at environ.annualreviews.org Abstract This article’s doi: Municipal solid waste (MSW) reflects the culture that produces it and 10.1146/annurev-environ-050511-122532 affects the health of the people and the environment surrounding it. Copyright c 2012 by Annual Reviews. Globally, people are discarding growing quantities of waste, and its All rights reserved composition is more complex than ever before, as plastic and electronic 1543-5938/12/1121-0277$20.00 consumer products diffuse. Concurrently, the world is urbanizing at an unprecedented rate. These trends pose a challenge to cities, which are charged with managing waste in a socially and environmentally acceptable manner. Effective waste management strategies depend Access provided by CAPES on 05/02/17. For personal use only. on local waste characteristics, which vary with cultural, climatic, and socioeconomic variables, and institutional capacity. Globally, waste governance is becoming regionalized and formalized. In industrialized Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour. 2012.37:277-309. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org nations, where citizens produce far more waste than do other citizens, waste tends to be managed formally at a municipal or regional scale.