Societies in Smart Cities: Lessons Learned from Waste Management

Urbanization continues to gather pace creating wicked problems. Waste management is one such issue which is incongruent to the ambition of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly Goal 11 – Sustainable Cities and Communities. This paper draws on two case studies of local councils, Canterbury-Bankstown in Australia and Christchurch in New Zealand, to discuss how the councils are tackling the international waste management challenge as part of their creative smart city programs. In doing so, the paper identifies lessons that shine the light on the use of technology and data, funding, community, and government engagement.