The role of solid waste management in boosting sustainable development goals

The management of solid waste is a growing challenge with rising trends in industrialisation and population growth, and has become a public and environmental health concern. The challenge spills over to negatively affect the realization of sustainable development goals (SDGs). This chapter focuses on how solid waste management (SWM) can be used to promote the realizations of SDGs while prioritizing on economic, social, and environmental growth. Findings show that systematic SWM has the capacity to influence most SDGs and hence the need to uptake it. This can be done by promoting circular economic models, formulating, implementing, and enforcing SWM regulations that are pro-sustainable development, improving governance of the solid waste sector through planning and adoption of better technologies to valorise waste.