Municipal solid waste generation is becoming a prominent issue in the environmental arena. The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship among municipal waste generation, greenhouse gas emissions, and GDP in Switzerland over the period 1990–2017. We apply both time series procedures (stationarity and causality tests) and a Machine Learning approach. Empirical findings underline a bidirectional causal relationship between municipal solid waste generation and GDP, indicating that the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis holds for Switzerland. Moreover, we found that waste recovery (recycling and composting) is a key driver in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, in the Tree Model, the probability that a change in the waste recovery variable could lead to a reduction in the greenhouse gas emissions registered a value of 87%.

城市生活垃圾的产生正成为环境领域的一个突出问题。本文的目的是调查1990-2017年间瑞士城市垃圾产生量，温室气体排放量与GDP的关系。我们同时应用了时间序列程序（平稳性和因果关系测试）和机器学习方法。经验发现强调了城市固体废物产生与GDP之间的双向因果关系，表明瑞士的环境库兹涅茨曲线假说成立。此外，我们发现废物回收（回收和堆肥）是减少温室气体排放的关键驱动力。实际上，在树模型中，废物回收变量的变化可能导致温室气体排放减少的概率记录为87％。