Municipal Solid Waste Analytics and Organics Diversion in the United States: A Comprehensive Review of Data-Driven Interventions

ABSTRACT: Municipal solid waste (MSW) management in the United States faces a critical inflection point, with over 292 million tons generated annually and diversion rates for organic fractions remaining critically low. Despite growing regulatory pressure, technological innovation, and demonstrated environmental benefits, the nation diverts only approximately 32% of compostable organics from landfills, contributing substantially to anthropogenic methane emissions. This comprehensive review synthesizes peer-reviewed literature from 2018 to 2025 to examine the state of data-driven interventions in MSW management, with particular emphasis on organics diversion. The paper evaluates descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive analytics applications; decision support tools and multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) frameworks; IoT-enabled smart waste systems; lifecycle assessment (LCA) findings; and the behavioral and sociodemographic dimensions of recycling participation. Evidence from U.S. municipal case studies shows that communities that implement integrated, analytics-driven approaches can achieve significant gains in organics diversion rates while also reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The assessment also highlights significant research gaps, such as the lack of nationally standardized datasets, limited multimodal data fusion, weak real-time decision assistance, and insufficient governance analytics for policy evaluation. Future research and practice must prioritize interoperable data platforms, equitable infrastructure deployment, and evidence-based policy analytics in order to fully achieve the climate and resource recovery potential of organics diversion in the United States.