Sustainable Garden Waste Management: Innovative Strategies for a Circular Economy

Unofficial AI-generated summary based on the public title and abstract. Not an official translation.

🔬研究者:Researchers in waste management and circular economy can use the comparative framework and identified research gaps for future LCA and digitalization studies.

🏢実務担当者:Municipal waste managers and landscape companies can gain insights into options like composting and bioenergy to reduce disposal costs and generate value.

🏛政策担当者:Policymakers can use the review to support multi-pathway strategies and life-cycle thinking in circular economy regulations for organic waste.

The waste resulting from landscaping and seasonal maintenance activities (such as grass clippings, leaves, prunings and other plant material) accounts for a significant portion of municipal solid waste, but is often landfilled, dumped or burned. That's a waste of a useful resource and contaminates the soil, water and air with methane and other pollutants, the environmental effects of which are increasing climate change. The review focuses on the innovative ways garden waste can be managed in the context of circular sustainability, using a narrative synthesis of the latest literature. Following the characterisation of the sources, physical and chemical properties and environmental impacts of garden waste, four main valorisation processes are compared: composting, mulching, bioenergy production, and resource recovery, with respect to their outputs, advantages, limitations and environmental profiles. The analysis demonstrates that these routes have the potential to turn the garden waste into compost, biochar, mulch, biogas and other high-value products, which leads to better resource efficiency, soil health, pollution reduction, carbon sequestration and economic opportunity. They are measured on four pillars: resource efficiency, pollution reduction, climate change mitigation and economic benefits. The review also identifies technical, economic and regulatory barriers to widespread adoption – feedstock heterogeneity, high capital costs, poor markets for recycled products and fragmented policy – and research gaps – complete life-cycle assessment, social acceptance, digitalisation of waste-management systems. Considering all the evidence, no single pathway is ideal; multiple pathways exist, which can be supported by a strong life-cycle approach and by clear policy for a circular economy, to make garden waste a valuable resource for more sustainable, resilient and resource-efficient communities.

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