This paper summarizes the economics perspective on recycling of municipal solid waste. The first section reviews recent data on recycling rates in the United States and across all OECD countries. The OECD data suggest the average aggregate recycling rate across member countries appears to have...

The pursuit of shifting Slovakia towards a circular economy is met with a multitude of obstacles, including the pervasive consumerist mindset among Slovakians. This mindset favors packaged food, leading to its improper disposal in municipal waste instead of being recycled. Furthermore, the...

Soil-bentonite cut-off walls are widely used in landfill projects. In recent years, attapulgite has been suggested as a substitute for bentonite in cut-off wall applications by scholars due to its distinct advantages over bentonite. However, the biochemical degradation of waste in landfills...

This paper examines the causal impacts of reducing solid waste imports on water quality in China, which was the world’s largest importer of waste until recently. We focus on the National Sword policy, introduced at the end of 2017, which abruptly banned the import of plastics, textiles,...

As the European Union (EU) continues to deal with the increasing quantities of packaging waste and its environmental impact, one area of focus is the harmonisation of waste sorting labels across EU Member States. This effort aims to for easier and more accurate packaging waste sorting in the EU....

Diverting waste away from and zero waste to landfills are key sustainability policy aims of local and national governments around the world, particularly in countries with large waste footprints from rapid consumption growth and urbanisation. Segregation at the source of waste generation can...