UNLABELLED: This study uses a bibliometric approach to identify global trends related to the municipal solid waste (MSW). It applies related literature in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Conference Proceedings Citation Index - Science (CPCI-S) and Conference Proceedings Citation Index - Social Science & Humanities (CPCI-SSH), retrieved from the ISI Web of Science. The data used covers the period from 1997 to 2014. Analyzed aspects included document type, and publication output as well as distribution of journals, subject category, countries, institutions, title-words, author keywords, and keywords plus. An evaluating indicator, citation score, was applied to characterize the MSW publications. The research outputs of MSW had steadily increased in the field of energy fuels, engineering chemical and biotechnology applied microbiology, especially environmental sciences and engineering environmental. The predominance of Chinese institutions in terms of article count and a predominance of industrialized countries' institutions in terms of citation score were compared. Finally, author keywords, words in title, and keywords plus were analyzed to provide research emphasis, with the developing trends and recent hotspots provided. IMPLICATIONS: A systematic overview of scientific literature dealing with municipal solid waste (MSW) is provided by a bibliometric analysis. The analysis of author keywords helps in drawing the research trends in a special perspective. Research studies on food waste, life cycle assessment (LCA), and renewable energy tend to be a new research focus in the area of MSW. The conclusions could provide a reference to the decision making and policy of MSW management for the government to some extent.