This report presents the first integration of two complementary global waste datasets: the Global Waste Management Outlook 2024 (GWMO 2024), recording infrastructure and waste flows, and the Lloyd's Register Foundation World Risk Poll 2024 (WRP 2024), capturing self reported household behavior from over 140,000 respondents. Four analyses examined how infrastructure, demographics, regulation, and risk perception shape disposal and separation behavior.
The central conclusion is that infrastructure, not regulation, awareness, or individual behavior, is the binding constraint on proper disposal, and investment must be sequenced accordingly. Across 142 countries and over 143,000 respondents, a consistent pattern emerges: where formal collection exists, uncontrolled disposal falls; where it is absent, burning and dumping follow regardless of income level, age, geography, or the presence of a legal ban. Two behavioral gaps persist independently of infrastructure and require dedicated intervention, but neither substitutes for collection. Behavioral and communication measures matter only as complements to collection, never as replacements for it. The evidence is detailed in the findings below.