The global market for waste management is sustained by the municipal waste output of the world's wealthiest nations, although it is also being fuelled by developing countries as they become wealthier and adopt the characteristics of well developed nations.
The report discusses waste management options in terms of the waste hierarchy, which prioritizes options in descending order of preference from waste elimination at source, reuse, recycling and composting to energy recovery, land spreading and landfill and incineration.