4 December, 2025 | Waste Management
WHO is launching a new global report, “Throwing away our health: The impacts of solid waste on human health.” Join the launch webinar on 16 Dec 2025, 13:00–14:00 UTC / GMT. DCW was pleased to advise on and review this important report and will join the panel discussion at the launch.
Formal municipal solid waste (MSW) management services were introduced in 19th century cities to protect public health. This report is a timely reminder of the continuing importance of that role, drawing attention in particular to the continuing public health risks where municipal solid wastes are not collected (UNEP/ISWA GWMO: 2.7 billion people without waste collection) and/or when they are open dumped or burned (~40% of global MSW collected). The report brings together current knowledge on how solid waste can impact health in both the global south and the global north; where the evidence is still missing; and what the health sector can do to drive change.
17 March, 2025 | Publication, Waste and resource management
In DCW’s new paper with Andy Whiteman and Nicole Hennessy, published open access by the leading journal Oxford Development Studies, we spotlight the urgent need to rethink how to extend waste services to reach underserved communities. UNEP and ISWA’s GWMO2024 estimates that 2.7 billion people worldwide still lack access to solid waste collection, with at a least a billion more whose collected waste is open dumped or burned. Progress in extending services in upper middle income countries and in parts of larger cities in lower income countries has been steady, but too many unserved or underserved communities are proving hard to reach. We argue that it is time for a radical rethink of our approach to tackle this global waste emergency.
The benefits of extending services to underserved communities (i.e. reaching 95+% on both components of indicator SDG 11.6.1. i.e collection coverage and controlled disposal) are Win⁵ (i.e. win-win-win-win-win): better community services, reduced disease outbreaks, more sustainable livelihoods, reduced municipal solid waste quantities and management costs, and reduced local and global environment impacts. The costs are local but the benefits are global and local: extending services to meet SDG11.6.1 would reduce macroplastic dispersal to the environment by ~80% and significantly mitigate climate heating.
Cities can transition earlier to more circular, integrated, sustainable, waste and resource management (WaRM), through initiating governance reforms; making early no regret investments; and focusing on what money matters? No regret investments include extending collection services; supporting recovery value chains – e.g. separating (wet) organic wastes from (dry) recyclable materials at source unlocks markets for both; and upgrading existing designated disposal facilities. A blend of finance is needed, from national and city sources, resource revenues, disposal pricing, extended producer responsibility (EPR) and international development (including climate and plastics) finance). New multi-lateral impact funds are needed that target extension of services to underserved communities.
Thanks to the Oxford Development Studies editors Jo Beall and her co-editor Mansoor Ali for inviting us to contribute to the (in process) Special Issue on Integrated Sustainable (Solid) Waste Management.
8 November, 2021 | Climate mitigation, Waste Management
Professor David C Wilson welcomes the only waste-related official side event at COP26 which is being held in Glasgow today at 1315 and available to watch on the United Nations – Climate Change COP 26 YouTube channel. That the topic is ‘A wasted opportunity: open burning of waste causes a climate and health calamity’ is an added bonus. Congratulations to ISWA, Wasteaid, Engineering X and partners for getting both waste and open burning on the official COP26 agenda!
To ‘eliminate uncontrolled disposal and open burning of waste’ is the second of the waste-related SDGs set out in UNEP and ISWA’s inaugural Global Waste Management Outlook (2015), for which DCW was the lead author. It is one of the two indicators within SDG indicator 11.6.1, for which UN-Habitat have recently published guidance. The climate heating implications of black carbon from open burning of waste have been demonstrated by Natalia Reyna, DCW and co-authors, who estimated that it is responsible for between 2-10% of global CO₂ equivalent emissions. The serious health impacts of open burning have been highlighted in a recent report by Engineering X, who are now leading an international collaboration to support its phasing out – DCW has joined their Technical Advisory Group. Open burning is also a major campaign issue for the charities Wasteaid, of which DCW is a Patron, and Tearfund, to whom DCW has provided advice on their ‘burning issue’ report.
16 September, 2021 | Publication, Resource and waste management
Professor David C Wilson is pleased to co-author an important new publication The Nine Development Bands: A conceptual framework and global theory of waste and development. The open access paper in ISWA’s peer-reviewed journal Waste Management & Research can be downloaded freely. The ‘9 DBs’ builds on the integrated sustainable waste management (ISWM) analytical framework to help characterise waste and resources management (WaRM) systems in cities and countries. Based on over 100 years of combined experience of the authors (Andrew Whiteman, Mike Webster and DCW), the 9DBs is a powerful addition to the waste management practitioner’s toolkit, bringing depth and nuance to understanding of WaRM systems globally.
The early DBs reflect stepwise improvement towards the new
baseline of meeting the SDG 11.6.1 indicators of universal collection and
management in controlled facilities (DB5); while later DBs represent two
prevailing routes to move towards environmentally sound management (ESM) and
the 3Rs (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle). An aspirational DB Zero, a real circular
economy, sits above all 9 DBs, accessible via multiple pathways, posing an
ultimate challenge for development practice. The 9DBs contextualise the
challenge of meeting the waste-related SDGs, in particular for developing
countries striving towards SDG 11.6.1 but also for all countries aspiring to a
circular economy. Whether you are a practitioner, decision-maker, service
provider, or sector activist, the 9DBs will help you to identify the key
pressure points for catalysing change, and focus your time and resources on
achieving maximum impact.
29 January, 2021 | Publication, Resource and waste management
Professor David C. Wilson has contributed a chapter on the SDGs as drivers for change to The Routledge Handbook of Waste, Resources and the Circular Economy, edited by Terry Tudor and Cleber Dutra and published on 28 December 2020. This has been a subject on which DCW has worked extensively, as re-casting improved waste and resource management as an entry point for tackling multiple, high-profile sustainable development goals significantly strengthens the case for action.
Solid waste management is not one of the high-level SDGs; like the equally important topic of air pollution, it is rather cross-cutting, impacting on multiple SDGs. DCW links five global waste targets, as defined in UNEP and ISWA’s inaugural Global Waste Management Outlook, to the 17 SDGs. He shows strong and in principle measurable links to six SDGs, not only the ‘obvious’ SDG11 (sustainable cities) & indicator 11.6.1, and SDG12 (responsible consumption and production); but also SDG1 (end poverty), SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation); and SDG13 climate action and SDG14 life below water (preventing plastics reaching the oceans). Links to six other high priority SDGs are still direct but more difficult to measure (e.g. SDG8 decent work through sustainable job creation, and SDG2 zero hunger through reducing food waste). Indirect links can also be made to the remaining five SDGs, including difficult-to-tackle equality and governance issues.
The Handbook sits behind a paywall, with only the abstract of the chapter online. The accepted manuscript of the chapter can be downloaded here:
