What a Waste 2.0: A Global Snapshot of Solid Waste Management to 2050 — Updated Dataset
About this book
What a Waste 2.0: A Global Snapshot of Solid Waste Management to 2050, published by the World Bank Group in 2018, is the most comprehensive global database and analysis of municipal solid waste (MSW) generation, composition, collection, and disposal available, providing country-level data for 217 economies and projections to 2050. An update of the 2012 What a Waste report, this second edition documents the significant changes in waste quantities and management approaches observed globally in the intervening six years. The headline finding of the 2018 edition is that global MSW generation is projected to increase from approximately 2.01 billion tonnes per year in 2016 to 3.40 billion tonnes per year by 2050 — a 70% increase driven primarily by population growth and rising per-capita consumption in developing economies.
Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are projected to see the largest absolute increases, with waste generation in both regions expected to more than triple by 2050. This trajectory has profound implications for greenhouse gas emissions: the waste sector currently contributes approximately 5% of global GHG emissions, primarily through methane from landfill decomposition and open burning. Waste composition data reveals significant geographic patterns.
High-income countries generate waste streams with high proportions of dry recyclable materials (paper, plastics, metals, glass), while low-income countries produce waste with higher organic content (food and green waste — often 50-80% of total MSW), greater moisture content, and higher density. These compositional differences have major implications for the appropriateness of different waste treatment technologies. Waste collection rates vary enormously: essentially universal (>99%) in high-income countries, but as low as 44% in lower-middle-income countries and below 10% in some low-income urban settings.
The consequences of uncollected waste — open dumping, open burning, drainage clogging, groundwater contamination — are examined through regional case studies. The report provides a framework for evaluating waste management systems through the waste hierarchy: prevention, reuse, recycling, recovery (composting and energy from waste), and disposal. It examines the economics of recycling in different commodity market conditions, the potential of extended producer responsibility (EPR) schemes to shift waste management costs to producers, and the social dimensions of waste management — particularly the role of informal waste pickers in developing country recycling systems.