The unprecedented urbanization that is occurring worldwide brings with it a vast amount of solid waste, leading to a rapid increase in study of municipal waste management (MWM) worldwide. This mini-review assessed this body of research both quantitatively and qualitatively. The data for the review were 9711 publications indexed by the Science Citation Index Expanded and the Social Sciences Citation Index for the period 2000–2019. The analysis showed that developed countries, the United States in particular, led trends in research during the first part of the period, and developing countries made substantial contributions to the literature more recently. For all years since 2009 except for 2014, China produced more research than the United States, becoming the most productive country in the study of MWM. Home to five of the ten most productive global research institutes on this subject, China is also a hub for collaboration among countries and institutes, as is the United States. Using content analysis and keyword visualization, this study characterized two decades of study of MWM. This study found that the keywords “sustainability,” “waste-to-energy,” “life-cycle assessment,” and “China” exhibited an upward trend in research. This study seeks the pathway to successful scientific research, helping guide researchers as they innovate in and contribute to the field, and proposes pathways that governments can take to build sustainable MWM systems.