Solid Waste Management is the activity of collecting, processing, and disposing of society’s solid waste in a safe and sustainable manner, to ensure the health of each citizen is not impaired by rotting wastes, and physically obstructed thoroughfares.

In recent years in the developed nations street cleansing has become routine, and of course, also includes the removal of anything unsighly as well.

Street garbage soon fills our throughfares if not collected..

Solid waste management efforts have in the past decade, mostly been directed at developing environmentally sound systems of minimizing, re-using, and recycling waste. What waste that then remains, known as “residual waste” or “black bag waste”, is then still further processed to produce valuable products, or if that is not possible the organic content is reduced before what then remains is sent to the destination of last resort: landfill.

The way that society, in the industrialized nations, disposes of rubbish has changed greatly in recent years. For example, solid waste is now not dumped into seas or unlined pits, and healthcare (medical) wastes are no longer disposed of with household waste, due to the risks they hold for injury and infection.

For most industrialized states today, solid waste management is a growing multiple billion dollar business which is vital to the survival of urban communities. Just imagine how difficult it is in the cities if even one week’s waste is left on the streets, and how soon that waste would start to smell, harbour vermin, and just physically clog up all of our transport links.

Rubbish collection agencies remove millions of tons of rubbish annually and sort it for recycling or final disposal. In towns and cities and rural areas the government organises weekly or fortnightly collections. Only in the most remote areas are the public required to bring their waste to the landfill, or a collection point.

As a result the solid waste management charge on local taxes (rates) has become a substantial sum for each resident to pay for waste collection, and disposal.

Ancient solid waste management was such that its investigation has become the mainstay of archaeology. Early solid waste management consisted of digging pits and discarding all types of rubbish into them.

This made these “middens” a treasure trove for archaeologists who have been able to piece together a huge body of evidence of the sorts of lives that folk lived. Modern microscopic and carbon dating techniques have revealed how folks ate, the materials they used to make implements, and a wealth of other insights into the everyday existence of our ancestors.

In the past, when local authorities did not make collections, and before many towns started to gear themselves up for regular community rubbish collection, ad-hoc recycling did take place very effectively. Rag and bone men would buy these items from folk and recycle them. The wealthier people would make their own arrangements for contractors to remove and dump their waste. However, in those days before plastics and when most people could burn their scraps on open fires, the quantity of waste produced was much less than today, and most of it would compost itself naturally when dumped even if dumped inappropriately.

Most solid waste management collection and disposal contracts are let by community government departments. The companies bid for contracts set to run for a specified term, before they are thrown open for a re-bid. The bidder prepared to charge the least while undertaking the disposal obligations specified generally wins the work.

Handcarts have be a mainstay of solid waste management since the invention of the wheel itself.