Digitalization and Digital Applications in Waste Recycling: An Integrative Review

Abstract

The rapid growth of urbanization and industrialization has brought the issue of waste management to the forefront. Industrial, household, and medical waste management and disposal are major issues affecting the whole world. The adoption of digital technologies across society is largely a result of the increasing processing power of waste and decreasing costs. Waste management and recycling is also benefiting from emerging digital technologies. The Internet of Things, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, robotics, and data analytics are a few examples of specific digital technologies that are currently in use and are predicted to have a significant impact on the efficiency of the waste recycling industry in the future. The objective of this review, which was conducted using the bibliometric method and visualized with scientific mapping, is to demonstrate how the digital transformation of waste recycling has evolved over the last decade and to identify which issues have been overlooked or have become more prominent. The scope of the research is based on studies carried out all over the world and on digital applications and works in the field of waste recycling. In this review, bibliometric analysis was used to scan the entire field and the results were classified and interpreted according to the PRISMA (preferred reporting of systematic reviews and meta-analyses) methodology.