Waste Management & Research
The Journal for a Sustainable Circular EconomyWaste Management & Research : The Journal for a Sustainable Circular Economy (WM&R) satisfies the growing demand for scientifically based essential information that can be utilised by waste management professionals in academia, government, industry, engineering, management, planning, and public health.
WM&R is a fully peer-reviewed international journal that publishes original research and review articles relating to both the theory and practice of waste management and research.
The editorial group seeks to promote innovation and provide a bridge between academic studies and practical problems. Articles should address problems and solutions that are of general interest to readers.
Electronic access:
Waste Management & Research: The Journal for a Sustainable Circular Economy? is available to browse online.
This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)
Routine human activities impact the environment and the consumption of natural materials and energy resources. The challenge to society is to minimize these impacts, maintain an acceptable quality of the environment, and sustain the quality of life and resource supplies for future generations. The generation of solid wastes is inevitable because all products have an end of life and humans and animals create wastes that have to be managed to maintain hygienic, healthy and tidy urban and open country environments. A key objective of the Waste Management and Research. The Journal for a Sustainable Circular Economy (WM&R) is to address these challenges through dissemination of scientifically based reliable information, e.g. in terms of waste prevention, waste recycling, recovery of energy from material residuals not suited for recycling or reuse, waste treatment, and waste disposal.
WM&R is a peer-reviewed journal that satisfies the growing demand for new and scientific information that can be referenced by waste management professionals in academia, government, industry, planning, engineering, management and operation. WM&R presents original work in the form of review articles, original articles, short articles, and letters to the editor.
WM&R encourages the submission of well organized manuscripts relating to sustainable waste management designs, operations, policies or practices and those addressing issues facing both developing and developed countries. Mass flow analyses, life cycle assessments, policy planning and system administration, innovative processes and technologies and their engineering features and cost effectiveness are among the key issues that WM&R seeks to cover through well documented reports on new concepts, systems, practical experience (including case studies), and theoretical and experimental research work. Manuscripts with limited scope or specialised application are normally not accepted. Studies on testing and characterisation of special waste streams or products with only a peripheral pertinence to solid waste management are normally referred to journals that focus on such topics. Manuscripts about modelling and software development are acceptable, when model and software applications remain accessible in the public domain. It is imperative that manuscripts are well founded in terms of existing literature and knowledge, including both recent and older publications.
Peer reviewers and editors evaluating manuscripts for publication consider as key criteria; originality, novelty and applicability of results in theory and/or in practice. Articles must be clearly written in UK English and authors must avoid duplication of information already published and avoid citing opinions without referenced foundations. Strict compliance with these and other WM&R manuscript submission guidelines is necessary to trigger the peer review process that could lead to subsequent acceptance for publication.
| Anke Bockreis | Universität Innsbruck, Austria |
| Arne Ragossnig | RM Umweltkonsulenten ZT GmbH, Austria |
| Costas Velis | University of Leeds, UK |
| Abhishek Kumar Awasthi | Nanjing University, China |
| Andreas Bartl | University of Technology Vienna, Austria |
| Alberto Bezama | Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research - UFZ, Germany |
| Mohan B. Dangi | California State University, Fresno, USA |
| Dimitris Dermatas | National Technical University of Athens, Greece |
| Mario Grosso | Politecnico di Milano, Italy |
| Sigrid Kusch-Brandt | University of Southampton, UK |
| Rodrigo Navia | La Frontera University, Temuco, Chile |
| David E. Ross (Ret.) | SCS Engineers, USA |
| Nemanja Stanisavljevic | University of Novi Sad, Serbia |
| Antonis A. Zorpas | Open University of Cyprus, Lab of Chemical Engineering and Engineering Sustainability, Cyprus |
| Francesco Di Maria | University of Perugia, Italy |
| Oliver Gohlke | Dublix Technology, Denmark |
| Sunil Herat | Griffith University, Australia |
| Telesphore Kabera | University of Rwanda, Rwanda |
| Amani Maalouf | University of Oxford, UK |
| Michael Nelles | University of Rostock, Germany |
| Iraklis Panagiotakis | ENYDRON - Environmental Protection Services, Greece |
| Sinichi Sakai | Environment Preservation Research Centre Kyoto, Japan |
| Yuanyuan Tang | Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), China |
| Giovanni Vallini | University of Verona, Italy |
| Goran Vujic | University of Novi Sad, Serbia |
| Mi Yan | Zhejiang University of Technology, China |
| Agamuthu Pariatamby | Sunway University, Malaysia |
| Atilio A Savino | A.R.S., Argentina |
| Carlos RV Silva Filho | Associação Brasileira de Empresas de Limpeza Pública e Resíduos Especiais, Brazil |
| David C Wilson | Consultant and Imperial College London, UK |
- Preparing your manuscript
- How to submit your manuscript
- After editor acceptance of your manuscript
- How to become a more successful author
- Further information
Waste Management & Research: The Journal for a Sustainable Circular Economy (WM&R) satisfies the growing demand for scientifically based essential information that can be utilised by waste management professionals in academia, government, industry, engineering, management, planning, and public health.
WM&R is a fully peer reviewed international journal that publishes original research and review articles relating to both the theory and practice of waste management and research. In this regard, Editors are obliged to avoid acceptance of plagiarized manuscripts. Instead the Editorial Group seeks to promote innovation and provide a bridge between academic studies and practical problems. Articles should address problems and solutions that are of general interest to the readers.
Waste Management & Research strongly encourages authors to include additional materials alongside their articles. These may take the form of datasets, images, graphical abstracts, tables, audio, and video. For more information on submitting supplementary files, please refer to these guidelines here.
WM&R also encourages authors to share their research data in a suitable public repository subject to ethical considerations and where data is included, to add a data accessibility statement in their manuscript file. Authors should also follow data citation principles. For more information please visit the Research Data Sharing Policies, which includes information about Sage’s partnership with the data repository Figshare.
WM&R also offers optional open access publishing via the Sage Choice programme. The Article Processing Charge (APC) is $3,000, however, you may be eligible for a discount. For more information please visit the Sage Choice website. For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit Sage Publishing Policies on our Journal Author Gateway.
Guidance for the preparation and submission of your manuscript is given below. More detail is available by using the links provided in the text where appropriate.
1. Preparing your manuscript
1.1 Manuscript peer reviewing and acceptance policy
All manuscripts are reviewed initially at the Editorial Office and then by the Associate Editors. Only manuscripts that meet the scientific and editorial standards, and fit within the Aims and Scope of the journal, will be sent for outside peer review. Each manuscript that is sent for peer review is reviewed by a minimum of two independent reviewers.
Be advised that WM&R receives many manuscripts. In order to offer both peer reviewers and editors fair and reasonable workloads, manuscripts uploaded by authors must comply strictly with the WM&R manuscript guidelines, for example in terms of substance, structure and language.
WM&R operates a single-blind reviewing policy in which the peer reviewers’ names are always concealed from the submitting author. Authors are requested to suggest the names, affiliations and contact information of five individuals who may suitably serve as peer reviewers (also known as referees). The suggested reviewers should preferably represent international expertise, and not in any way be associated to the authors or the reported work. The Editors are under no obligation to use all or any of these individuals as reviewers.
All Tables and Figures should form part of the submitted manuscript. They should not be submitted separately. Characters specified below include Tables and Figures, but not References.
•Review articles: Between 70,000 and 80,000 characters (with spaces), including up to 10 illustrations and/or tables. A review article presents a critical evaluation of information that has already been published, and considers the progress of current research toward clarifying a stated problem or topic. It should meet both of the following criteria:
◦Cite at least 100 references; and
◦Review must appear as a word in the title, and the abstract must state that it is a review article
•Mini-review articles: Between 40,000 and 50,000 characters (with spaces), including up to 7 illustrations and/or tables. A mini-review article presents a critical evaluation of information that has already been published in a topic related to waste management, and considers the progress of current research toward clarifying a stated problem or topic. It should meet both of the following criteria:
◦Cite at least 50 references; and
◦Mini-review must appear as a word in the title, and the abstract must state that it is a mini-review article
•Original articles: Between 25,000 and 35,000 characters (with spaces), including up to 7 illustrations and/or tables. An original article presents new information on a specific waste management and research topic or problem. Novel concepts, proven results and interesting perspectives for waste management in theory or practice and evidence of thorough literature research are important criteria when considering acceptability for peer review.
•Short communications: Between 10,000 and 15,000 characters (with spaces), including up to 4 illustrations and/or tables. A short communication would typically describe topical and/or innovative preliminary data in the field of waste management which may be of interest to an international professional audience and that is deemed worthy of expedited publication.
•Letters to the Editor: Between 3,000 and 3,500 characters (with spaces), including (optional) one figure or table. Letters to the editor must be concise and specific and relate to an already published article in WM&R or to the journal’s operations. Letters to the Editor should be sent directly to the Editor-in-chief (bockreis-wmr@gmx.net) and copied to the WMR Editorial Office (wmr@iswa.org).
•Editorials: Between 8,000 and 9,000 characters (with spaces), including (optional) one figure or table. Editorials address topics that editors or invited guest editors deem of particular concern or general interest.
Authors are asked to prepare their manuscript in Arial 12 point font. Further details on format, layout, and structure are outlined below.
1.3 Manuscript structure (original articles and short reports):
In general, authors are encouraged to review and mimic the format and style of previously published WM&R manuscripts. Further guidance is provided below.
Title page: The first page should indicate the title, the authors' names in full and affiliations, and a postal and e-mail address for the corresponding author.
Abstract: Each manuscript should begin with a single-paragraph abstract of max. 1,500 characters (with spaces). The abstract should summarise all aspects of the manuscript [problem(s) addressed, objective(s), methodologies, important result(s), and conclusion(s)].
Key words: For indexing purposes, a list of 6-8 key words is essential. Key words should include important nouns cited in the title and abstract. If in doubt how to select proper key words you may consult “How to become a more successful author” or http://www.uk.sagepub.com/authors/journal/readership.sp
Introduction: A short introduction should start the substantive text. The introduction must place the work described in an appropriate context, including impetus for the research, practical applications (including estimates of costs, where applicable), and results of a literature study. The introduction must clearly state the specific objectives of the work presented.
Materials and methods: This section should describe and reference the techniques applied in the investigation and make clear the protocol of the study. The model and sensitivity of monitoring equipment should be stated in this section. Statistical tests should be described briefly.
Results and discussion: This section should describe what was found and provide appropriate numerical and statistical support. The discussion should explore the implications of the findings but not be highly speculative. It may be convenient to organise the text under sub-headings (not to be numbered).
Conclusion: This section should tie the major findings to the objective(s) stated in the introduction and suggest the practical or theoretical relevance of the manuscript to future research, waste management practices, or regulations and policies.
Acknowledgements: Please acknowledge contributors and sponsors to your work. Formatting and other guidance are set forth at http://www.uk.sagepub.com/authors/journal/funding.sp
1.4 Manuscript style & format
File types
The Manuscript should be written as editable/source files only e.g. Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx). Tables, figures and captions/legends should be embedded in the text where they naturally belong. Manuscripts should be in UK English as in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and be double line spaced. In general, grammar, punctuation, and syntax for body text should be in accordance with common English practice, such as set forth in the EU English Style Guide.
Text preparation
The text should be double-spaced throughout and with a minimum of 3cm for left and right hand margins and 5cm at head and foot. Text should be standard 10 or 12 point.
Illustrations and tables
Original line drawings and photographs must be twice the desired size (maximum printed width 130 mm) at a resolution of at least 300 dpi. Remember that text and symbols should be legible in print. The default is to print all graphics in black and white; colour printing is optional at authors' expense. All illustrations should be in “ .jpg” format.
All figures must be numbered consecutively with concise descriptive captions and legends provided on separate pages. Each figure must be clearly referenced in the text (e.g. Fig. 4) and with an indication of where it should appear in the final document (e.g.: Table 4 here).
Authors are responsible for obtaining and submitting to WM&R permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere.
Units, abbreviations, symbols and equations
Only metric units (SI) should be used in a manuscript. After the first appearance of a term in full, a standard abbreviation may be used. Superscripts, not slashes (/), should be used to describe units, e.g. kg m-3.
Equations: Equations should be numbered consecutively and referenced in the text (e.g. Eq. 1), for example Am = B + C (1)
English Language Editing services
Non-English speaking authors who would like to refine their use of language in their manuscripts might consider using a professional editing service or including a native-English-speaker as a co-author.
Footnotes
Essential information must be included in the text: authors should not use footnotes.
References
Please refer to Sage Harvard reference style. View the Sage Harvard guidelines to ensure your manuscript confirms to this refence style.
References should be listed in alphabetical order and appear at the end of the manuscript. Citations in the text should be denoted with the author's surname and the year of publication (e.g.: using the data obtained by Parkpain et al. (2000) or using data from literature (Grigg 1996, Pokrajac and Jones 2000).
If the text contains two or more papers written by the same author(s) in the same year, the citations should be differentiated by a letter; e.g.: (Grigg 1996a). IMPORTANT: Abbreviated journal titles should not be used. Titles of papers should be given in their original language and, if possible, they should be followed by a translation into English in parentheses.
All cited references are to be included in the reference list; and respectively, all listed references are to be cited in the manuscript.
- Book example:
Sifaleras A and Petridis K (eds) Operational Research in the Digital Era – ICT Challenges. Cham: Springer.
- Book chapter example:
Gayialis SP, Konstantakopoulos GD and Tatsiopoulos IP (2019) Vehicle routing problem for urban freight transportation: A review of the recent literature. In: Sifaleras A and Petridis K (eds) Operational Research in the Digital Era – ICT Challenges. Cham: Springer, 89-104.
- Conference Proceedings example:
Pokrajac D and Jones K (2000) Oil infiltration in the vicinity of a shallow groundwater table. In: Groundwater 2000. Proceedings of the International Conference on Groundwater Research (eds Bjerg PL, Engesgaard P & Krom TD), Copenhagen, Denmark, 6-8 June 2000, pp. 17-18. Rotterdam: AA Balkema
- OnlineFirst example:
Velasco E and Nino J (2014) Recycling of aluminium scrp for secondary Al‐Si alloys. Waste Management & Research. Epub ahead of print 1 September 2014. DOI: 10.1177/0734242X10381413.
- Scientific journal example:
Parkpain P, Sreesai S and Delaune RD (2014) Bioavailability of heavy metals in sewage sludge amended Thai soils. Water, Air and Soil Pollution 122(1): 163-182.
- Web site reference example:
National Center for Professional Certification (2002) Factors affecting organizational climate and retention. Available at: www.cwla.org./programmes/triechmann/2002fbwfiles (accessed 10 July 2010).
- Scientific report example:
HLPE (2014) Food losses and waste in the context of sustainable food systems. A report by the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition of the Committee on, World Food Security, Rome.
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) (1991) Audit and reduction manual for industrial emissions and wastes. Technical report UNEP(05)/T32. Paris: UNEP.
WHO (World Health Organization) (2020a) Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) situation report 51. Available at: https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200311-sitrep- 51-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=1ba62e57_10 (accessed 20 March 2020).
1.5 Plagiarism Policy
Waste Management & Research and Sage take very seriously issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims and/or evidence of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. To this end, submitted articles may be checked using duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to include material plagiarised from other works or third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgment, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action. Actions may include, but not be limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article: taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's affiliated institution and or/relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.
1.6 Research Data
The journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages.
Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to:
- share your research data in a relevant public data repository
- include a data availability statement linking to your data. If it is not possible to share your data, we encourage you to consider using the statement to explain why it cannot be shared.
- cite this data in your research
2. How to submit your manuscript
Before submitting your manuscript, please carefully read and adhere to all the guidelines and instructions to authors provided above. Manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.
Online submission and review for all types of manuscripts excluding Letters to the Editor is mandatory. Please use the Sage track website http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/WMR to open an account as author and follow the guidelines for uploading of manuscripts.
IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have already created an account. For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help
ts.mcsupport@thomson.com
Account for new users
Please log onto the website. If you are a new user, you will first need to create an account. Follow the instructions and please ensure that you have entered a current and correct e-mail address. Creating your account is a three-step process that takes only a couple of minutes. When you have finished, your User ID and password are sent via e-mail immediately. Please edit your User ID and password to something more memorable by selecting 'edit account' at the top of the screen. If you have already created an account but have forgotten your details, type your e-mail address in the 'Password Help' to receive an e-mailed reminder. Full instructions for uploading the manuscript are provided on the website.
ORCID
As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized.
The collection of ORCID iDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this journal. If you already have an ORCID iD you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID iD to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID iD will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID iD is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.
If you do not already have an ORCID iD please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.
New Submission
Submissions should be made by logging in and selecting the ‘Author Center’ and the 'Click here to ‘Submit a New Manuscript' option. Follow the instructions on each page, clicking the 'Next' button on each screen to save your work and advance to the next screen. If at any stage you have any questions or require the user guide, please use the 'Get Help Now' button at the top right of every screen. Further help is available through ScholarOne's® Manuscript CentralTM customer support at +1 434 817 2040 x 167 (between 09 and 16 GMT).
To upload your manuscript, click on the 'Browse' button and locate the files on your computer. When you have selected the file you wish to upload, click the 'Upload Files' button.
Check that your submission is as intended (in .docx format) and then click the ‘Submit’ button. You may suspend a submission at any point before clicking the Submit button and save it to submit later. After submission, you will receive a confirmation e-mail. You can also log back into your author centre at any time to check the status of your manuscript.
If you would like to discuss your paper prior to submission, please contact the Senior Editor-in-Chief at: bockreis-wmr@gmx.net For advice on the submission process, please contact the Editorial Office Manager at: wmr@iswa.org.
Submitting a Revised Submission
Authors submitting revised manuscripts should follow the instructions above to submit through the Sage track system. To create a revision, go to the 'Manuscripts with Decisions' option in your Author Dashboard and select Create a revision’ in the 'Action' column. Authors of all revised submissions should, when prompted, provide information explaining the changes in their manuscript.
Time for processing of your manuscript
WM&R manuscript processing implies a period of time between submission and acceptance of manuscript that is typically 4-6 months, depending on the quality of the manuscript. Author and editor can shorten the necessary period by appropriate and speedy action when assessing the reviewers’ comments (editor) and when revising the manuscript accordingly (author).
After possible acceptance of your manuscript by the editor, you may expect Online First (OF) publication by Sage within approximately 1.5 months, given immediate and complete response from you when receiving proofs from Sage. Printed publication will take place later depending on organisation and focus of topics in the different upcoming issues of WM&R and the number of manuscripts already in the pipeline for printing. You will be notified in advance, but OF publication facilitates immediate journal citation and complete referencing due to the DOI number that will always follow your article in both OF and printed versions.
3. After editor acceptance of your manuscript
Journal contributor’s publishing agreement
Before publication Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Sage’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants Sage the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than Sage. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit our Frequently Asked Questions on the Sage Journal Author Gateway at http://www.sagepub.com/journalEditors.nav
WM&R offers optional open access publishing via the Sage Choice programme. The Article Processing Charge (APC) is $3,000, however, you may be eligible for a discount. For more information please visit the Sage Choice website. For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit Sage Publishing Policies on our Journal Author Gateway.
Proofs
Sage will email a .pdf of the proofs to the corresponding author.
E-Prints
Sage provides authors with access to a .pdf of their final article. For further information please visit http://www.sagepub.co.uk/authors/journal/reprint.sp.
Sage Production
At Sage we place an extremely strong emphasis on high quality production standards. We attach high importance to our quality service levels in copy-editing, typesetting, printing, and online publication (http://online.sagepub.com/). We also seek to uphold excellent author relations throughout the publication process.
We value your feedback to help us continue to improve our author service levels. On publication all corresponding authors will receive a brief survey questionnaire about your experience of publishing in WM&R with Sage.
OnlineFirst Publication
WM&R benefits from OnlineFirst, a feature offered through Sage’s electronic journal platform, Sage Journals Online. It allows final revision articles (completed articles in queue for assignment to an upcoming print issue) to be hosted online prior to their inclusion in a final print and online journal issue which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. For more information please visit our OnlineFirst Fact Sheet
4. How to become a more successful author
The WM&R editors have developed a set of criteria for how to produce well written articles and become successful authors. Authors are advised to follow these guidelines: How to be a more successful author
For more information, follow this link: https://www.sagepub.com/how-to-get-published
If you would like to discuss your paper prior to submission, or seek advice on the submission process please contact the Senior Editor-in-Chief at this email address: bockreis-wmr@gmx.net. For advice on the submission process, please contact the Editorial Office Manager at:wmr@iswa.org.