Designing Waste Management Systems in the City of the Future

Each year people on the planet produce tons of waste. The more urbanised a country is, the more residues it produces. Its management is one of the most expensive services to municipalities and in many countries, it is still one of the main concerns. Many environmental and health problems are associated with poor waste management practices and the absence of circular economy approaches. Moreover, traditional waste management systems are designed from a waste production perspective. The process is focused on the collection of the produced waste, system coverage of it across the urban territory and its expansion. The prevalent way of thinking is still: out of sight, out of thought. Fewer efforts are put into transforming solid waste management in the direction of having a material or resource flow. Often municipalities work in silos and for this reason, solid waste is regarded as an independent process, acting on its own, designed and operated individually. Although there are many overlaps that the operation can have if it is planned in an integrated manner. The paper presents solid waste management (SWM) regarding this integrated perspective, highlighting the synergies that could be achieved with other sectors such as mobility and logistics. It describes what can be understood under material circularity from an SWM perspective and how the principles and ideas described in the paper can be integrated into the urban planning of future cities ensuring that the waste is handled as a valuable resource.