Assessment Strategies for Municipal Selective Waste Collection – Regional Waste Management

Abstract

Waste disposal in landfill sites causes a potential hazard for the human health, as they release substantial amounts of gas, odours and pollutants to the environment. There have been vast reductions in the volume of waste being landfilled in many European countries and a reduction in the number of illegal landfills. The European Parliament's laws obliged the Member States to amend the national waste law; the main objectives of the implemented directives are to create the conditions for the prevention of excessive waste. Directive 2008/98/EC establishes, as a goal for 2020, that waste reuse and recycling reach 50% of the total waste produced. Poland, having joined the European Union, committed itself to implementing many changes related to waste management. The amendment of the law on the maintenance of cleanliness and order in the municipalities imposed new obligations regarding the waste management (WM) on the local government and residents. By adopting a municipal waste management system, the selected municipality made all its residents responsible for their waste. However, the fact of introducing changes does not solve the waste problem. The implementation of EU directives and the development of strategic documents such as the National Waste Management Plan (NWMP) have made a clear change in the WM approach. One of the changes was the establishment of selective collection of municipal selective waste (MSW), with the issue of collecting the waste by the residents being a priority. This work describes the legal context of selective collection of MSW as one of the most effective means of reducing the amount of waste being landfilled.

Construction and Demolition Waste in Romania: The Route from Illegal Dumping to Building Materials

“…Also, they can order a special container from the urban waste operator. Similar separate collection facilities for C&DW are initiated in Poland cities [28]. On the other hand, Zagreb city has the sole stationary treatment facility; while in the other parts of Croatia recycling is carried out in mobile processing plants [14].…”

Sustainability performance evaluation of municipal selective collection systems applied to a case study

“…In general, the selective collection systems in low-and middle-income countries are not implemented in a planned form (Melaku and Tiruneh, 2020). These systems are put into operation without a sufficiently developed recycling market, without programs to educate the public about the adequate separation and packaging of solid wastes, without evaluating the sustainability of different management models, and without controlling the system's costs (Berg et al, 2018;Expósito and Velasco, 2018;Pérez-Lopez et al, 2018;Campos-Alba et al, 2021). Institutional, financial, political and social questions hamper the development of selective collection systems and the effective inclusion of waste pickers and cooperatives, which are rarely supported by the government and are exploited in the recycling market, and whose problems generally involve financial dependence and difficulties of self-management (Dutra et al, 2018;Siman et al, 2020).…”

Selection of a Multicriteria Method for Selecting Independent Variables for Forecasting the Energy Potential of Municipal Waste—A Case Study in Poland

“…Modern large-scale thermal waste conversion plants built in Europe in recent years are primarily grate incineration plants [3]. According to the data included in the Best Available Techniques (BAT) guidelines, one metric ton of municipal waste processed in a combined heat and power system can generate approximately 0.4 MWh of electricity and about 6.6 GJ of net heat energy [3,4]. Considering that thermal waste treatment plants constitute an important element of the municipal waste management sector in Poland, the development of such installations is planned.…”

“…According to the provisions of the Voivodeship Waste Management Plans, the construction of approximately 100 facilities is planned in the coming years. Unfortunately, currently, the majority of collected municipal waste (40%) is landfilled, and only about 20% is used for thermal conversion with energy recovery [4]. The location, technology, and size of a specific thermal waste treatment facility, apart from the ecological requirements and social acceptance, should consider the quantity of municipal waste generated in a given area.…”