For the last couple of years the Republic of Serbia adopted the basic postulates of waste management compliant with EU experiences. Waste management system involves a set of measures and activities aimed at waste quantities reduction, its reuse, appropriate waste handling and hygienic disposal of the remaining waste. All the mentioned processes, within the waste management system, have been defined by strategic and planning documents adopted at the state level. The strategic and planning documents come from primary legislation and from a series of by-laws adopted in the last three to four years. This paper provides a strategic approach to waste management planning by way of the analysis of documents and policies and the analysis of the current situation of municipal waste and special waste streams management. Specific guidelines have been recommended i.e. the prospects of waste management have been analyzed taking into account the current level of development, on the one side, and the necessity of regarding the standards and principles of sustainable waste management in accordance with EU experiences, on the other side. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 176017]