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The Expanding Waste Planet: Global Trends from 2023 to 2060 The world's waste increase stems from overlapping factors: population growth, urbanization, rising incomes, and mass consumption. According to UNEP estimates, global municipal solid waste is projected to rise from approximately 2.1 billion tons in 2023 to about 3.8 billion tons by 2050. Furthermore, World Bank projections indicate a rise from approximately 2.01 billion tons in 2016 to about 3.4 billion tons by 2050, emphasizing that the growth rate outpaces population increase. The background involves more than just a simple increase in volume. Urban areas inherently generate large volumes of short-lived waste, such as packaging materials, disposable products, and containers from eating out and delivery services. Per capita waste generation tends to increase with rising income. As urbanization advances in low- and middle-income countries, the risk grows that collection and intermediate treatment systems will struggle
to keep up, leading to increased open dumping and open burning. The UNEP report indicates that delayed action will result in increased dumping and burning becoming a major future burden.

The impacts extend beyond the environment, directly affecting household finances, public budgets, and health. UNEP estimates that by 2050, the global annual cost will rise substantially when including not only direct waste management expenses but also hidden costs like pollution, health impacts, and climate effects. In areas with high levels of open dumping and improper disposal, issues like foul odors, pests, incineration smoke, and leachate are compounded by methane emissions from organic waste, creating a major climate concern.

The need for global action stems from waste's ability to create cross-border chain reactions. Plastic is a prime example: the OECD projects that without additional measures, plastic waste will surge dramatically by 2060, continuing to fill landfills and leak into the environment. The realistic solution, therefore, is to prioritize waste reduction and reuse, maximize resource recovery based on separate collection, and only resort to safe incineration or landfill for residual waste. This sequence must be enforced through national policies and investment. UNEP has concluded that a circular economy scenario can also yield cost benefits.