A Path to Sustainable Municipal Waste Management: From Engineering Practices to Education and Training

With population growth and increasing municipal solid waste generation, efficient and sustainable waste management strategies become important to protect both human health and the environment. Although the transition from the prevailing waste management systems, such as landfilling, to modern waste management systems based on the 3R principle (reduce, reuse and recycle) is imperative, it is still very difficult to achieve in many countries. The waste management systems applied are in line with the country’s income level, and the sustainable cutting-edge technologies are almost exclusively applied in high- and upper-middle- income countries. Thus, the modernization of the waste management system is achieved mostly through the growth of the gross domestic product. Moreover, the efficiency of modern sustainable waste management systems depends not only on the implementation of appropriate technical and economic strategies, but also needs to be supported by the education of citizens and the training of waste management professionals. The paper gives an overview of the educational- professional project “EDUcation for CLImate Change mitigation in the municipal solid waste sector”, which is part of the European Climate Change Initiative (EUKI).