A thorough overview of the literature on waste recycling in the circular economy: current practices and future perspectives

To develop a circular economy (CE) and protect the environment, waste recycling (WR) is crucial. This study examines WR research conducted over the past two decades to identify the most significant advancements and promising areas for future research. The following challenges were handled through text mining, content, and bibliometrics analysis: How has CE influenced the evolution of WR research? What are the CE's most important WR research trends and themes? What directions could future research on WR take regarding the CE transition? Using 1118 articles from the Scopus database journal, bibliometric networks were made and analyzed. Hence, five critical CE-related problems needing further research were recognized: waste recycling is the first cluster, followed by technology, the CE transformation, plastic waste, and waste management (WM). Examining WM and inclusive waste reduction practices and their distinct highlight patterns may impact future research fields and serve as a transitional tool to CE (which aims to minimize waste generation). Forthcoming research targets contain waste reduction and incorporation of WR into the CE framework.