Driving EU sustainability: Promoting the circular economy through municipal waste efficiency

The need to balance ecosystems and ensure the well-being of all people underlines the urgency of closing product life cycles. In recent years, the circular economy (CE) has emerged as one of the most relevant factors in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. This paper presents a systematic literature review (SLR) of waste management efficiency at the European level. Furthermore, it presents a standard data envelopment analysis (DEA) of 27 European countries over the period 2017–2021, focused on municipal waste. Three models (i.e., economic, technical, sustainable) are proposed to optimise the rates of municipal waste recycling and circular material use. The SLR, based on an initial set of 216 articles that was subsequently refined through double screening to 31, highlights the strategic role of the waste management, recycling and municipal solid waste triangle. The results of the DEA indicate stronger synergy between technical and sustainability dimensions than between economic and sustainability components. Moreover, they highlight fragmented performance in Europe, with distinct clusters of countries emerging as top performers in each of the three models, and the Netherlands, Slovenia, France, Italy, Germany and Sweden demonstrating superior performance for both CE outcomes and sustainable performance. Overall, the results emphasise the strategic role played by technology in facilitating an efficient circular model of municipal waste management to minimise landfilling and other environmentally detrimental practices, thereby stimulating the development of sustainable communities for optimised waste management, in line with broader sustainability objectives.