Barriers to Integrating the Circular Economic Model Into the Municipal Solid Waste Management System: Systematic Review

The circular economy is considered a key tool for sustainable development, capable of transforming the traditional economic model, operating it as a closed-loop system, and utilizing “waste” as a resource for the production of new products. The research results systematically discuss the theory, including the problems and obstacles to the integration of the circular economy model into the municipal solid waste management system. It structures the problems and obstacles found in the literature from a dual perspective that complicate, hinder, or even delay the integration. The study did so by reviewing 116 scientific articles from five perspectives–economic, social, environmental, technological, and policy–considering the stages of effective municipal solid waste management: waste generation; collection, sorting; reuse, recycling, recovery from waste; final waste disposal. The systematic review showed that, in addition to numerous economic, social, and environmental obstacles to the integration of the circular economy, technological and political obstacles must also be taken into account. However, to overcome all of these, an effective waste management system must first be operated in each country. To do this, for each stage of municipal solid waste management, the problems and obstacles