An Actor-Based Systematic Review of Airport Waste Producers: Sources, Characteristics, and Spatial Distribution

As critical infrastructure that facilitates air transport connectivity and supports regional and national economic development, airports are complex socio-technical environments with diverse activities generating considerable and heterogeneous waste streams due to interactions with multiple operational actors within the complex aviation systems. Although research on waste management is growing, the sources and spatial distribution of airport waste producers remain inadequately synthesised, particularly in developed countries, with limited attention given to systematic review identifying airport waste-producing actors, and examining the characteristics of the waste generated. This study undertook an actor-based systematic review to identify the major airport waste producers, their associated waste characteristics, spatial distribution, and assess the implications for sustainable airport waste management.A systematic literature review approach guided by the PRISMA framework was employed to synthesise evidences from academic publications, institutional reports, and relevant aviation and environmental literature published between year 2000 and 2025. Following duplicate removal, title and abstract screening, full-text eligibility assessment, and final selection, thirty-seven (37) studies were subjected to thematic analysis. The review identified six major categories of airport waste-producing actors: passengers and passenger-related activities, airlines and aircraft operations, airport authorities and administrative activities, airport concessionaires and commercial operators, airport maintenance and technical service activities, and cargo and logistics operations. The analysis classified the waste producers according to their operational roles. The findings indicate that these actors generate distinct waste streams with varying material characteristics and spatial distributions across airport environments. Passenger and commercial activities were particularly associated with municipal, food, and packaging wastes in terminal areas, while airline, maintenance, and cargo operations generated more specialised, technical, regulated, and packaging-related waste streams across aircraft, airside, technical, and cargo areas. The findings highlight the limitations of generalised waste-management approaches and demonstrate the need for actor-specific and location-specific interventions. The study contributes to airport sustainability literature by applying an agent-based perspective and integrating material-flow and integrated solid-waste-management perspectives to explain the relationship between waste-producing actors, waste characteristics, spatial distribution, and management requirements. The findings provided an actor-based and spatially informed basis for developing targeted segregation, recycling, resource-recovery, and waste governance strategies and establishes a foundation for future empirical investigation of airport waste generation and management, particularly in Nigerian international airports.

Airport waste, waste generation, waste producers, waste management, aviation sustainabile waste management

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