Characterization of waste is the first step in planning any sustainable waste management policy that will stand the test of time. Many published works gotten from various publication domains such as Science Direct, Engineering village, Springer books, etc. were reviewed to understand different approaches by different authors on the different solid waste characterization methods. The different waste characterization methods have been reviewed in this paper. The methods include two major categories viz; materials flow approach and site-specific/output approach. The materials flow approach utilizes the production data and product weight to estimate the waste quantity and composition on a national basis. The site-specific/output approach involves the sampling, sorting, and measurement of the respective components of a local waste stream. The site-specific approach is further divided into direct sampling at the source and vehicle load sampling of solid wastes. Based on some socio-economic and environmental factors like weak environmental laws, indiscriminate waste disposal, inadequate facilities, poor maintenance, poor environmental campaigns, and lack of well-structured waste collection pattern peculiar to Nigerian universities, direct Sampling or characterization at Source promises to be a suitable method for stratifying municipal solid wastes in the country's Campuses.