Tourism in Tunisia generates large amounts of solid waste, especially during the summer, and doubles the amount in most big tourism cities like Hammamet, which makes its management more complicated. Municipalities lack the financial means to ensure sustainable solid waste management (SWM) in tourist areas and need an intervention from all actors to reduce financial and technical pressures and implement sustainable solutions. This paper presents a descriptive research method that focuses on an analysis of the current SWM concept in tourism areas in Tunisia and proposes new sustainable organizational and financial models. These are based on the collaboration of different stakeholders at both national and local levels; and supported by extending the responsibility of the producer through the creation of a new system operator to take charge of the organization and financing of packaging disposal and recycling activities. In addition, the extension of the recovered material for recycling through extended producer responsibility (EPR) could support the system. The performance of current SWM shows that it has failed to ensure the cleanliness of tourism destinations is sustainable. Tunisia generates 2.8 million tons of municipal solid waste (MSW), between 20% to 30% of which are recyclable materials. The current system for packaging in Tunisia (ECO-Lef) only collected 3400 tons in 2018 compared to 15,800 tons in 2010, and the total recycling rate in the country does not exceed 5%, which makes the waste management system inefficient and unsustainable. Proposed solutions should be supported by legal and technical interventions, such as waste prevention, minimization, sorting at source, and the provision of education programs for citizens and tourism establishments.

The main objective of this research was to provide suitable technical, organizational, financial, legal, and social indicators for solid waste management (SWM) systems, which can be used to diagnose the current situation faced by tourist destinations (TD) in Tunisia. To this end, 33 interviews and field visits to hotels in Tunisia were carried out. Specifically, the study covers tourist municipalities, private companies, and environment and tourism authorities. A characterization analysis and a quantification of the solid waste (SW) generated by hotels were also performed. It was found that hotels generate large amounts of mixed SW, especially during the summer period. It represents, for example, 45.5% of the total SW generated per year in Hammamet, and can reach 54.2% during the summer. The interviews indicated that 83% of the hotels collect mixed waste, which is then sent to landfills. The characterization of the SW shows that hotels generate about 58% organic waste, and a minimum of 36% of recyclable waste could be valorized. From a financial point of view, the results indicated that the collected taxes from hotels do not cover the municipalities’ expenses. The findings of the research reported in this paper can be used as a decision-making support.