The paper discusses the strategy developing for an effective management of municipal solid waste. The significant factors for modelling have been identified. A cognitive model, taking into account to the diversity of initial data is proposed. To solve this problem, expert-statistical estimates are proposed. Cognitive maps that correspond to the different strategies for the municipal solid waste management in industrialized areas have been constructed, specifically, the prevalence of waste storage, storage and sorting, sorting and processing. Proposed cognitive model allows to make the primary qualitative analysis of the problem situation, allows to identify the relationship and influence of various factors. This analysis reduces the level of uncertainty in waste management. The main purpose of strategies developing for municipal solid waste managing based on cognitive modeling is to reduce the uncertainty of the problem situation and make a consolidated decision, taking into account of various stakeholders interests, including population, government agencies, businesses and specialists in territorial systems management, the scientific community and public organizations. Keywords-cognitive model, focus groups of actors, solid waste management, industrialized areas, significant factors, primary qualitative analysis Insufficient knowledge about cause-effect relations of waste and conditions of the VIth International Workshop 'Critical Infrastructures: Contingency Management, Intelligent, Agent-Based, Cloud Computing and Cyber Security' (IWCI 2019)