Industry 4.0 based sustainable circular economy approach for smart waste management system to achieve sustainable development goals

Abstract

Indonesia is facing a number of independently managed challenges related to the collection, transportation, processing (composting, recycling), and landfill dependence on waste management. An intervention is needed to bring stakeholders together to solve these waste challenges. The objectives of this study are to investigate the fundamental issues and opportunities and to develop a sustainable and smart country-wide waste management system using industry 4.0 technologies. The system should provide a multi-dimensional approach, determine the maturity level of the waste management system in a technical method, and pursue the goal of designing a new strategy to minimise waste management problems. A comprehensive systematic literature review, intensive focus group discussions, and direct observation in Indonesian cities were approaches used to develop waste management business processes and their system design. Waste business processes consist of mixed-collecting, sorting, transporting, varied-treatment, and chained-disposal. The design of the proposed waste management system presents circular economy processes that can separate municipal waste, identify waste characteristics, and determine sustainable waste treatment technologies through the use of Internet of Thing (IoT) as the integrator. This study contributes to the sustainable development goals (SDG’s) such as Good health, and wellbeing (SDG 3); Clean water and sanitation (SDG 6); Decent Work and Economic Growth (SDG 8); Responsible Consumption and Production (SDG 12) and Climate Action (SDG 13). The study proposes a new design of smart and sustainable waste management which could achieve satisfactory economic, social, and environmental waste management performances.