This publication, Solid Waste Management in the World Cities, is the third edition in UN-HABITAT’s State of Water and Sanitation in the World Cities series. It aims to capture waste management trends and draw attention to the importance of waste management, especially regarding its role in reaching the UN Millennium Development Goals. The publication acknowledges the escalating challenges in solid waste management across the globe. It seeks to showcase the good work that is being done on solid waste by cities around the world, large and small, rich and poor. It achieves this by looking at what drives change in solid waste management, how cities find local solutions and what seems to work best under different circumstances.

The publication endeavours to help decision-makers, practitioners and ordinary citizens understand how a solid waste management system works and to inspire people everywhere to make their own decisions on the next steps in developing a solution appropriate to their own city’s particular circumstances and needs. Most readers will never travel to all the 20 cities featured in this report, but through this publication they have access to real experiences of people working on the ground.

WASTE was a key contributor to this publication and we hope it will provide a key reference point for managing solid waste in the world’s cities and towns.