Marketing strategies for waste recycling: a bibliometric analysis towards the circular economy

Companies have adopted green marketing and marketing strategies to position themselves in consumer preferences and combat the problem of accelerated consumption of resources that has compromised the planet’s regenerative capacity, where the circular economy emerges as a solution to move towards responsible production and consumption patterns. From waste recycling marketing strategies, a descriptive analysis of 120 documents from the SCOPUS database was carried out using bibliometric techniques to know the existing state of the art for the period 1977–2021. The results indicate that the annual scientific production increased in the last ten years by over 200% for 2019, highlighting the USA, China, UK, Germany, and India, and Mexico is in position 22. The conceptual and trend analysis points out the relationship between marketing, waste management, commercialization, recycling, sustainable development, and circular economy, topics that have deepened research in the last 5 years due to the SDGs. Through intellectual analysis, schools of thought were identified, highlighting Chen, Wang, Zhang and Liu, Lu, and White as the most influential and connected with other authors. The results show no link between the study areas, but rather that they are developed in isolation, evidencing an area of opportunity to work on marketing strategies for waste recycling, where companies adopt circular economy objectives, obtaining an advantage. Competitive position and position in the market by offering products from a valorization that the consumer prefers.