Worldwide scaling of waste generation in urban systems
Mingzhen Lu, Chuanbin Zhou, Chenghao Wang, Robert B. Jackson,, Christopher P. Kempes

TL;DR
This paper uncovers universal scaling laws of waste generation in urban systems worldwide, revealing how waste types scale with city size and how economic and natural factors influence these relationships.
Contribution
It applies scaling theory to identify universal laws of waste generation across diverse urban systems, linking waste types to city size and resource factors.
Findings
Wastewater scales superlinearly with city size
Municipal solid waste scales linearly with city size
Greenhouse gases scale sublinearly with city size
Abstract
The production of waste as a consequence of human activities is one of the most fundamental challenges facing our society and global ecological systems. Waste generation is rapidly increasing, with corresponding shifts in the structure of our societies where almost all nations are moving from rural agrarian societies to urban and technological ones. However, the connections between these radical societal shifts and waste generation have not yet been described. Here we apply scaling theory to establish a new understanding of waste in urban systems. We identify universal scaling laws of waste generation across diverse urban systems worldwide for three forms of waste: wastewater, municipal solid waste, and greenhouse gasses. We show that wastewater generation scales superlinearly, municipal solid waste scales linearly, and greenhouse gasses scales sublinearly with city size. In specific…
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Taxonomy
TopicsMunicipal Solid Waste Management · Sustainability and Ecological Systems Analysis · Land Use and Ecosystem Services
