Municipal solid waste management in a circular economy: A data-driven bibliometric analysis

This study aims to present a systematic data-driven bibliometric analysis on municipal solid waste management as a foundation in a circular economy. The current literature has yet to be fully developed given the complexity of the corresponding concept and knowledge. Traditional bibliometric analysis lacks the ability to screen out important keywords for future directions, and the keyword frequencies are described numerically. This study applies the entropy weight method to convert the frequencies to weights and performs regional comparisons based on a database; hence, this study contributes to the literature by providing potential future directions. The database includes 413 published articles, and 41 indicators are listed. The results are used to identify valid indicators for improvement and provide a regional state-of-the-art comparison. The top 5 indicators for future study are incineration, life cycle assessment, plastic waste, sorting solid waste, and sustainability. A bibliographic coupling analysis provides a comparison of 5 regions and reveals that Africa and North America have less studies than other regions. © 2020 Elsevier Ltd