| Globally,2.01 billion tons of municipal solid waste(MSW)are generated annually,and MSW generation continues to rise.By 2050,global MSW is expected to reach 3.4billion tons.From 2000 to 2019,China’s municipal solid waste removal volume has also risen from 118.188 million tons to 242.062 million tons,an increase of 1.08 times.China is confronted with the dilemma of “waste siege”.In the international community,some developed countries initiated MSW recycling systems decades ago and have made remarkable achievements.In 2019,Shanghai pioneered the introduction of the "Shanghai Municipal Domestic Waste Management Regulations",which is the first time in China to incorporate MSW management into the legal framework.The suitability of a region to implement MSW sorting and recycling has been demonstrated to be primarily influenced by the socioeconomic conditions of the region.However,the extent to which it is appropriate for a region to implement MSW recycling has not been adequately discussed,considering the available socioeconomic foundation.This study constructs a socioeconomic evaluation index system with five dimensions: economic,social,technological,market,and awareness,to assess the extent to which the current socioeconomic level supports implementing the MSW recycling system.Combining the index system and the multi-indicator evaluation model,a comprehensive judgment system of the suitability for the implementing MSW recycling system is constructed.The three levels of suitability for MSW recycling are evaluated according to the differences in the socioeconomic development of the study samples,which are selected from countries around the world,Chinese provincial administrative regions(except Hong Kong,Macao,and Taiwan),and Chinese cities.In this study,the suitability comprehensive judgment system was modified locally and applied to the city-level evaluation study,taking into account the actual development situation in China.Further,suggestions for implementing the MSW recycling system in China are proposed.The main findings of this paper include the following aspects:1.In order to quantitatively analyze the suitability of MSW recycling systems in countries around the world,countries with the gross domestic product(GDP)ranking within the top 100 countries in the world and a population of more than 5 million are selected as the empirical countries in this study.Due to data availability,68 countries and regions are finally selected for this study.Then,this study applied the already constructed comprehensive judgment system of the suitability for implementing the MSW recycling system to classify the suitability for implementing the MSW recycling system in these 68 countries and regions in 2018.The results indicate that developed countries in North America,Western Europe,Northern Europe,and Oceania have high suitability for implementing MSW recycling systems due to their excellent socioeconomic foundation.Belgium,Denmark,the Netherlands,Sweden,and Switzerland are classified as Rank I regarding overall suitability and their respective socioeconomic dimensions.Italy,Greece,Portugal,Spain,and the Czech Republic are in Rank II due to limitations in economic and technical dimensions.The social dimension represents a limiting factor for some emerging economies and resourcebased countries,such as Brazil,Malaysia,Mexico,Saudi Arabia,and the United Arab Emirates.The market dimension is a limiting factor for some large industrial and resource-based countries,such as China and Saudi Arabia.The findings of this study provide a reference for countries at different levels of development to adequately understand the extent to which the socioeconomic foundation supports their implementation of MSW recycling and the subsequent direction of efforts in MSW management.2.This study applies the constructed comprehensive judgment system to continue investigating the suitability of MSW recycling in 2020 in 31 provincial regions(except Hong Kong,Macao,and Taiwan)in China.Among the 31 provincial regions in China(excluding Hong Kong,Macao,and Taiwan),the performance of provincial regions is divided into three categories based on suitability closeness scores.Provincial regions with a closeness of 0.5 or higher include Beijing,Zhejiang,Jiangsu,Shanghai,and Guangdong.All of these provincial regions,except Beijing,are located in the eastern coastal region.These regions not only have high economic aggregates but also are remarkably steady,and their indicators of implementing the MSW recycling system are better than those of other provincial regions.The provincial regions with suitability closeness scores of 0.2-0.5 include twelve provinces and cities-Tianjin,Shandong,Fujian,Hainan,Hubei,Chongqing,Anhui,Hunan,Liaoning,Sichuan,Henan,and Jiangxi.These provinces and cities are mainly located in the central region,which is not suitable for implementing the MSW recycling system in most regions for the time being.These regions may try to implement pilot projects when conditions are ripe.The provincial regions with suitability closeness scores below 0.2 include Hebei Province,Shaanxi Province,Heilongjiang Province,Jilin Province,Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region,Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region,Gansu Province,Shanxi Province,Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region,Yunnan Province,Qinghai Province and 14 other provinces,including two provinces in the northeast,and most of the western region.The economic foundation of these provinces is relatively weak,and more economic investment and policy support are needed to implement the sorting and recycling system in these provinces,which may cause waste of material and human resources if implemented blindly when the investment and support conditions are insufficient.3.In this paper,the comprehensive judgment system is improved from the actual situation,and the system is modified for localization.Herein,This paper construct a socioeconomic foundation framework integrating socio-economy,environmental innovation and waste management dimensions to prioritize the suitability of 286 Chinese cities for waste recycling in 2015 and 2020 using fuzzy matter element extension model.The spatial features and key drivers of the suitability are identified integrating spatial autocorrelation and spatial regression analyses.The most socioeconomically developed cities form agglomerations(Jing-Jin-Ji,Yangtze River Delta,and Pearl River Delta)with high suitability.Attributed to reinforced waste management,the suitability of cities in Zhejiang,Shandong and Henan elevates most remarkably.Some cities ranked after the 200 th in 2015 improve the suitability ranking more than 60 places in 2020,such as Heze,Puyang,Nanyang,Xinyang,Zhoukou,and Yongzhou.A trend towards stronger spatial clustering is demonstrated by the increased Moran’s I for the suitability(from 0.176 to 0.206),with "High-High" clusters as the above agglomerations,and "Low-Low" clusters mainly in the Northeast,Inner Mongolia and Southwest.Disparities in the extracted key drivers of the suitability in four typical behindhand provinces(Sichuan,Liaoning,Heilongjiang and Guangxi)confirm the necessity of implementing waste recycling considering local socioeconomic foundation.The findings assist in fully understanding the cities’ socioeconomic foundation to support waste recycling.This study assesses the suitability of implementing MSW sorting and recycling in countries at different levels of development,provincial administrative regions and cities in China,and identifies the unfavorable factors.The results of this study provide a reference for countries around the world,provincial administrative regions and cities in China to understand the local socio-economic level of support for MSW recycling,and provide directions for subsequent waste management efforts.In addition,the study provides theoretical support for the implementation of MSW sorting and recycling systems in cities of different development levels in developing countries. |
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