Influence of Selected Geopolitical Factors on Municipal Waste Management

Abstract

The collection and transportation of municipal solid waste create a significant energy and carbon footprint, resulting in a significant environmental impact. Proper waste management organization is necessary to minimize this impact. This research aims to identify differences and similarities in waste collection sectors, distinguish affiliation clusters for different waste types, and determine the impact of geopolitical factors on waste production in the analyzed region. Therefore, the similarities of waste production in the separated sectors for different waste types were analyzed. Instead of using the Kolmogorov–Smirnov distance between distributions of waste production, the statistics have been calculated based on L1 and L2 norm because they give the scale of differences. The multidimensional scaling method (MDS) and cluster analysis with a Gaussian mixed model (GMM) were used to identify changes in waste production. This technique makes it possible to detect changes between sectors in the analyzed region. Significant differences in cluster membership of sectors by waste type were observed. Geopolitical factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have caused changes in the sector affiliations of the waste clusters under analysis. The pandemic caused changes in the affiliation of non-segregated waste, plastics, and glass, while no change in waste generation preferences was observed for paper and cardboard waste. The war in Ukraine caused changes in the generation preferences of all waste types in the analyzed region.