Waste Management and Life Cycle Assessment: Challenges and Opportunities

Dear Colleagues,

Approximately 2.01 billion metric tons of municipal solid waste is generated annually, of which at least 33% is not properly managed. It is anticipated that 3.40 billion metric tons of global waste will be generated by 2050 (World Bank, 2025). Consequently, waste prevention must be prioritized, followed by efficient collection, reuse, recycling, and the proper treatment of residual fractions to mitigate adverse environmental impacts (ISWA, 2025). Within this context, life cycle assessment (LCA) is a methodological framework used to evaluate the environmental impacts of a product or process, and its application in waste management systems is useful for identifying improvement opportunities across the entire value chain, from raw material extraction to final disposal, encompassing both upstream (pre-production) and downstream (post-consumption) stages. It plays an important role in supporting evidence-based decision-making with regard to selecting sustainable waste management strategies, such as composting, anaerobic digestion, landfilling, energy recovery, and thermal waste treatments.

We are seeking submissions of reviews, original case studies, or research articles focused on the following topics:

• Challenges of traditional waste LCA;
• Waste management system modelling;
• Waste technologies;
• Waste in the context of LCA;
• Environmental impact waste strategy through LCA;
• Waste treatment (physical, chemical, and biological) and energy recovery;
• Circular economy using LCA;
• Zero waste and LCA;
• Life cycle assessment of electronic waste;
• Recycling and reuse using LCA.

References

World Bank. What a Waste 2.0. A Global Snapshot of Solid Waste Management to 2050. WB. 2025. Available online: https://datatopics.worldbank.org/what-a-waste/trends_in_solid_waste_management.html

International Solid Waste Association. To Promote and Develop Sustainable and Professional Waste Management Worldwide and the Transition to a Circular Economy. ISWA. 2025. Available online: https://www.iswa.org

Prof. Dr. Lorena De Medina-Salas
Prof. Dr. Eduardo Castillo-González
Dr. Mario Rafael Giraldi-Diaz
Prof. Dr. Manuel Soto
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Environments is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• waste management
• circular economy
• energy recovery
• LCA