Work

Rethinking municipal solid waste management with life-cycle environmental impacts

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Large cities in Saudi Arabia are among the fastest developing cities in the Middle East, continuously generating a huge amount of municipal solid waste (MSW). The need to minimize the life-cycle environmental burden for MSW systems is widely recognized, yet an eco-friendly system has not been established, with traditional landfills and mass burning still solely depended upon. In line with Saudi Vision 2030, there is a need for evidence-based MSW strategies that minimize life-cycle environmental impacts across multiple impact categories. In this research, six scenarios for MSW were examined, proposed by different Saudi authorities using recent data collected directly from them, literature, and the ecoinvent v3.9 database. A life-cycle assessment (LCA) was utilized with openLCA v2.4, considering eleven environmental impacts: fine particulate matter formation, fossil resource scarcity, freshwater ecotoxicity, freshwater eutrophication, global warming, human carcinogenic toxicity, human non-carcinogenic toxicity, mineral resource scarcity, ozone formation (human health), stratospheric ozone depletion, and terrestrial acidification. The study revealed that while some scenarios reduce certain environmental burdens, significant challenges remain in others, indicating the need for a balanced, integrated approach. The results show that the scenario with both recycling (42%) and organic treatment (42%) maximized, and minimal landfill (9%) and waste to energy (WtE) of approximately 7% (Sc3-National Centre for Waste Management) achieved the lowest environmental burden across key categories. Conversely, heavy reliance on waste to energy (80%) (Sc1-Royal Commission for Riyadh City) resulted in the highest burden in 8 out of 11 categories. These findings highlight the importance of combining recycling, organic treatment, and WtE to minimize environmental impact and support policy planning for effective MSW management.

Source: Circular Economy

DOI: 10.1016/j.cec.2026.100223

Authors: Abdullah Ahmad Alahmary, Markus Mueller, Xianlai Zeng, Xiaoyu Yan

Language: English

Topic: Municipal Solid Waste Management

Subfield: Waste Management and Disposal

Field: Environmental Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDGs: Sustainable cities and communities, Responsible consumption and production, Climate action, Clean water and sanitation

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $1,680

Funders: University of Exeter, Tsinghua University, Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission