MAEEN MD KHAIRUL AKTER 

Stony Brook University, PhD in Technology, Policy, and Innovation 

EREF Scholar 2026 

Project Title 

Residential vs Commercial Waste Composition: Measuring Multivariate Similarities and Differences for Policy Implications 

Project Description 

Different communities discard their household wastes differently. Households and businesses do not necessarily discard the same materials. Yet many waste programs manage these waste streams using similar approaches. Waste studies usually report the percentages of food, paper, plastics, glass, and other materials one category at a time. This makes it difficult to determine whether waste streams from different communities are similar or different or, if the residential and commercial waste streams are similar overall.  Maeen’s project compiles information from dozens of waste composition studies from different jurisdictions across the US over approximately 25 years. He is developing a statistical approach to compare each waste stream as a complete mixture, group similar waste streams, and identify the materials responsible for important differences. The study will also determine whether differences between residential and commercial waste are greater than changes occurring over time.  The findings can help communities decide whether households and businesses should share collection and recycling systems or require separate programs. This evidence could support better recycling services, infrastructure planning, material recovery, and reduced landfill disposal. Data on how communities are different is also key to just transformation decisions for material circularity and regional sustainability initiatives.  

Biography 

Maeen has followed an interdisciplinary academic and professional path. He is a trained textile engineer from Bangladesh University of Textiles, Dhaka, Bangladesh with a specialization in engineering management focusing on sustainable industrial transformation and circular economy. He also obtained a master’s in management of technology from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) in 2019, where his research was on industrial innovative capacity for sustainable transformation. He worked in the textile-apparel industry in several capacities and conducted research on material-stream-mapping of textile solid waste, the circular economy and responsible production and consumption (SDG-12).   In 2022, Maeen started his PhD in Technology, Policy and Innovation in the Department of Technology and Society at Stony Brook University, New York, US. He is currently working as a graduate assistant and researcher in the Waste Data and Analysis Center (WDAC) on a project commissioned by New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC). His work includes municipal solid waste characterization and data analysis. He is developing a multivariate method for comparing waste streams to identify overall similarities and differences for policy implications. He expects to graduate in the summer of 2027.