Urbanization has increased across the globe and all the big cities can be considered as the principal drivers of the country’s economy, but at the same time, these cities also contribute to the large-scale production of solid wastes.
The rapidly increasing population growth has also caused a severe imbalance in the supply and demand chain, rising prices of daily commodities, safe drinking water and waste management. The latter becomes important, as improper disposal of waste is detrimental to human health and the environment. The harm might be caused not only by the waste itself but also as a consequence of inappropriate treatment strategy, e.g., the release of offensive odors and breeding of insects and rodents.
The environmental impacts due to illegal dumping of municipal solid waste or its mismanagement could lead to the following harmful effects:
(i) spread of disease vectors,
(ii) foul odor due to the degradation of organic fractions,
(iii) open biomass burning leading to air pollution problems,
(iv) leaching of toxic compounds affecting the ground water quality,
(v) climate change impacts and atmospheric photochemical reactions,
(vi) degradation of existing landscapes,
(vii) contamination of soil and surface water bodies.
Therefore, to counter-balance these impacts, there is an urgent need to implement innovative hybrid treatment technologies that would accomplish resource recovery from municipal solid waste (MSW) and facilitate to achieve sustainable bioeconomy in developing countries.