Author(s)

A. Morrissey & J. Browne

Abstract

For a waste management system to be sustainable, it needs to be environmentally effective, economically affordable and socially acceptable. However, very few of the waste management systems identified by the authors considered social aspects of municipal waste management, with most focusing on environmental and economic aspects. Therefore, none of these systems could be considered to be truly sustainable. While there are now many well-established definitions of sustainable development, no satisfactory definition of sustainable waste management appears to exist in the literature. This paper includes such a definition. In addition, the paper discusses what sustainable waste management means in practice and the types of guiding principles that could be used. Finally, the status of sustainable waste management in Ireland is descri

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