Mapping and visualizing of research output on waste management and green technology: A bibliometric review of literature

The transition to a circular economy (CE) and environmental protection highly depends on waste management (WM) and green technology (GT). The purpose of this study is to examine the past two decades of WM and GT research to identify the most significant advancements and potential future research areas. Bibliometrics content analysis and text mining were utilized to resolve the subsequent issues: Has WM and GT research developed over time in the CE industry? Does WM and GT research have a clearly defined purpose? How do you foresee the future of WM and GT research in the context of CE evolving? Consequently, 1149 journal articles from the Scopus database were used to create and evaluate bibliometric networks. Therefore, five significant CE-related issues requiring additional research were identified: The first category is bio-based WM, followed by CE transition, GT, ecological impacts, municipal solid WM and lifecycle assessment, and finally, bio-based WM. Future research topics and a tool for the CE transition may be impacted by the investigation of inclusive WM systems, GT practices and their defining highlight patterns (which aim to minimalize waste generation). Future research goals include reducing waste and implementing WM into the CE framework.

Automated summary

This study examines the development of waste management and green technology research in the circular economy industry over the past two decades and identifies future research areas. The findings suggest that bio-based waste management, transition towards circular economy, green technology, ecological impacts, municipal solid waste management, and lifecycle assessment are important areas for further research. Future research goals include waste reduction and integrating waste management into the circular economy framework.