Due to dense populations and consumerist dynamics, megacities generate a large volume of waste, which has resulted in pressure to develop effective waste management systems. Unlike other environmental issues, previous studies on waste management tend to deal with waste management as a mere public service, overlooking many other actors who are involved in, and responsible for, its life cycle. This study highlights a concept of environmental stewardship referring to actions taken by public entities, private sector, civic organizations, and individual citizens to use and treat resources responsibly. Taking a heuristic approach that uses theory to direct case examination, we conducted a comparative case study through a review of academic literature and policy reports, in order to examine the municipal waste practices of New York City (NYC) and Seoul to explore the relevance of the phenomenon of environmental stewardship in municipal waste governance. The study found that both cities have gradually included various actors in their waste governance and in their move towards environmental stewardship, but that they differ in terms of the extent to which each steward engages and in each city's waste outcomes–i.e., significant civic roles of both in promoting recycling and public awareness, yet unlike Seoul in NYC, minimal public roles and central roles of private sector in waste collection and treatment. Having similar wastes generated, recycling rate in Seoul was over twice that of NYC. This study expands our purview of waste management by integrating the concept of environmental stewardship, which provides a holistic understanding for interventions.

由于人口密集和消费主义动态，特大城市会产生大量废物，这给开发有效废物管理系统带来了压力。与其他环境问题不同，以前有关废物管理的研究倾向于将废物管理作为一种公共服务来处理，而忽略了许多其他参与并对其生命周期负责的参与者。这项研究突出了环境管理的概念，指的是公共实体，私营部门，民间组织和个人公民为负责任地使用和处理资源而采取的行动。我们采用启发式方法，运用理论指导案例研究，通过对学术文献和政策报告进行回顾，进行了比较案例研究，为了研究纽约市和首尔市的城市垃圾处理做法，以探讨环境管理现象在城市垃圾治理中的相关性。该研究发现，两个城市在其废物管理和走向环境管理的过程中已逐渐纳入各种参与者，但在每个管理者参与的程度和每个城市的废物结果方面，即它们在公民的重要角色方面存在差异。无论是在促进回收利用和提高公众意识方面，还是与纽约市首尔不同，在废物收集和处理方面，公共角色和私营部门的核心角色都很少。由于产生了类似的废物，首尔的回收率是纽约的两倍。这项研究通过整合环境管理概念扩大了我们对废物管理的视野，