A brief history of solid‐waste management

This paper reviews documents giving no more than a series of glimpses of solid‐waste problems and treatment over the last three‐thousand years in, principally, the Western hemisphere. The problems faced by city dwellers in dealing with their solid wastes are shown to have changed remarkably little during this period. Major changes have occurred in the character of wastes only in the last few decades, but these changes have not brought about changes of a similar scope in management methods.