THE IMPACT OF WASTE COMPOSITION ON THE MUNICIPAL
WASTE MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES IN EUROPEAN CITIES
Mackow Iwona*, Sebastian Marta, Szpadt Ryszard
Wroclaw University of Technology
Institute of Environment Protection Engineering
Wybrzeze S. Wyspianskiego 27
50-370 Wroclaw
Abstract
The work presents the current state of Municipal Waste Management in Poland and the necessary
changes resulting from the National Waste Management Plan. This ambitious task comprising a
certain number of levels of the biodegradable waste disposal and recovery, recovery of the
substances, materials and energy acquired from the waste, distinguishing the bulky, building and
hazardous waste from the rest of the municipal waste requires the developing of a series of new
Municipal Waste Management (MWM) scenarios and choosing the optimal solution. The above
stated task is one of the objectives of 5. F P European Project “The Use of Life Cycle Assessment
Tools for the Development of Integrated Waste Management Strategies for Cities and Regions with
Rapid Growing Economies”.
The article authors are one of the partners and members of the Scientific Committee of this Project.
The results presented, which constitutes part of the Project, refer to municipal waste composition in
selected cities from, Greece, Lithuania, Slovakia and Poland.
Key words
Municipal Waste Characteristics,
Municipal Waste Management,
Life Cycle Analysis
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1. Introduction
In accordance with both Polish and the European Union legislation on waste, the following
principles on waste treatment were accepted, in order to determine the range of the following tasks,
presented in detail in the National Waste Management Plan (NWMP, 2002) :

prevention or minimalization of generating waste,

providing the possibilities of waste recovery, especially recycling the waste,
creating of

which cannot be avoided under particular technical and economic circumstances,

waste disposal (except landfilling),

environment-friendly and non-offensive to human health methods of depositing the waste
which cannot be recovered or disposed of under the current circumstances.
In the past, MWM systems consisted primarily of waste collection and disposal at a local landfill.
Today's they are complex and highly integrated systems that might include materials collection,
materials & energy recovery, composting, combustion, and other processing steps. Communities
now must make complex decisions between environmental performance and cost, which must be
very carefully analysed.
The analysis of potential waste management scenarios based on a Life Cycle approach
enable compilation of all environmental inputs (resources consumption) and outputs (emissions to
air, water and soil) throughout their whole life cycles. Implementation of MWM concepts enables to
achieve recommended recycling/recovery quota at economically lowest cost. The development of
integrated waste management systems, case studies and their analyses are presented in the newest
edition of Integrated Solid Waste Management: A Life Cycle Inventory by (McDougall, 2001).
2. Case-studies presentation
The conditions for waste management planning in Europe will vary due to climate, demographic
and geographic conditions, as well as the nature of the waste streams. The starting point within each
waste management system is the generation of municipal waste (MW) and its characteristics.
2.1. Definition of municipal waste
The definition of household waste varies from country to country. The European Environment
Agency (EEA) defines household waste as solid waste composed of garbage and rubbish, which
normally originates from houses (EEA, 2003a). The similar to household waste are those which
originate from other sources than household, like offices and shops, and are collected and disposed
of in the same manner as household waste. Mixed waste is understood as household and similar to
household waste collected in a municipality where no separate collection scheme is implemented
2
and residual waste consists of those wastes that remain for collection after source separation of
recyclables.
According to polish Act on Waste (AW, 2001), waste means any substance or object which the
holder disposes of or is required to dispose of pursuant to the provisions of national law in force.
In both the European (EWC, 2000) and Polish Waste Catalogues (PWC, 2001) in the category
no 20 “Municipal wastes and similar commercial, industrial and institutional waste including
separately collected fractions consist of:
20 01: Separately collected fractions: paper and cardboard, glass, small plastics, other plastics,
small metals, other metals, wood, organic kitchen waste, clothes, textiles, different types of
hazardous waste (solvents, acids, pesticides, etc.);
20 02: Garden and park wastes: compostable waste, soil and stones and other non-compostable
wastes
20 03 Other municipal wastes: mixed municipal waste, waste from markets, street cleaning residues
and septic tank sludge.
Additionally, in the category no 15 “Waste packaging; absorbents, wiping cloths, filter materials
and protective, clothing not otherwise specified” under point 15 01 addresses packaging waste,
including separately collected municipal packaging waste. These includes the following packaging
waste: paper and cardboard, plastic, wood, metal, composites, mixed packaging, glass, textile and
packaging contaminated dangerous substances.
All waste streams considered in the Project LCA-IWM are partial streams of the municipal
solid waste which is defined as follows (Fischer and Crowe, 2000):
Municipal (solid) wastes are waste collected by municipalities or by order of them. They include
waste originating from households, commercial activities, office buildings, institutions such as
school and government buildings and small businesses that dispose of waste at the same facilities
used for municipally collected waste.’
2.2. Municipal waste characteristics
The following categories of municipal waste were singled out in NWMP , after analysing its
composition with regard to technological possibilities associated with waste disposal and recovery :

organic waste (biodegradable waste derived from plants and animals, as well as
biodegradable waste generated as a result of tending private gardens, balcony flowers,
etc),

garden waste (biodegradable waste discarded from gardens and parks, fairs, cemeteries,
city greens etc),

paper and cardboard (paper and cardboard packages, multi-ingredient packages with
based on paper, paper and cardboard not used in packaging),
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
plastic material (packages and the plastic material not used in packaging),

textiles,

glass (glass packages and glass not used in packaging),

metals (tin packages, aluminium packages, other metal waste),

mineral waste . discarded from streets and squares: soil, earth, stones,

fine ash fraction . the waste discarded as a result of burning solid fuels (mainly coal) in
stoves; applying any recovery and disposal methods other than depositing is
unlikely in this case, due to the fact that ash is one of the components of the MW,

bulky waste,

building waste . discarded from construction sites, house maintenance activities and
building demolishing activities . some of them listed among the MW,

hazardous waste belonging to the group of the MW.
Every year the municipal sector in Poland generates approximately 13, 500,000 tons of waste.
Average Indicators of municipal waste generation for urban and rural areas in 2000 were 423.71
kg/I/yr (kilogram/Inhabitant/year) and 223.59 kg/I/yr respectively
The amount of solid waste generation per capita strongly depends on the social and economic
conditions. This can be proved by remarkable differences in the MSW generation rates in European
cities. As an example, a comparison of economic areas in the year 2000 shows that major EU-15
cities were characterised by far higher MSW generation rates (510 kg/cap/yr) than the CEE cities
(354 kg/cap/yr).
2.3. The present situation of Municipal Waste Management in Poland, tasks for the future
In the year 2000, about 97% of the municipal waste was deposited at municipal landfills by
the entities involved in waste collection and transport. There are 999 registered municipal
landfills, with the total area of 3125 ha. Due to a selective waste collection carried out in 30% of
Polish municipalities, approximately 148,000 tons of waste paper, glass, plastics, and metals was
collected separately, which constitutes approximately 1.1% of the total generated municipal waste.
In the same year there were 52 recovery facilities, where the initially separated waste was prepared
for the recovery process and 54 composting plants, where organically recycled waste amounted to
248,000 tons, which constituted approximately 2% of the total generated municipal waste stream.
It is to be expected in comparison with the year 2000 the amount of MW in municipal sector will
increase by approximately 21% in 2006, 33% in 2010, and 51% in 2014 ..
The NWMP in its section on the municipal solid waste considers it necessary to:


recover and disposal of (excluding landfilling) biodegradable waste,
guarantee recovery and recycling of packaging waste,
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
separate bulky, and construction & demolition and hazardous waste from the municipal
waste stream by means of separate collection

separate hazardous waste from the municipal waste stream by means of separate
collection in order to dispose of them.
The expected levels of each kind of waste separation are presented in detail in NMWP.
The realisation of the above mentioned tasks requires the developing of a series of Municipal Waste
Management (MWM) scenarios and choosing the optimal solution. The problem has been solved
within the 5. F P European Project (LCA -IWM, 2002) 2, which is still in progress.
3. Experimental
The Project LCA-IWM will deliver methods for assessment of alternative scenarios for Municipal
Waste Management. The designed scenarios will employ different waste treatment/disposal
technologies with diverse levels of complexity. During the introductory part of this step of the
Project the Partners from the selected cities: Xanthi in Greece, Kaunas in Lithuania Nitra in
Slovakia and Wrocław in Poland presented in Fig.1., collected the data needed to develop waste
management strategies for these cities.
Fig.1. Location of European Cities under study
The scope of data (parameters) needed to implement a waste prognostic model and the developed
sustainability indicators (environmental, social and economic) included waste charasteristics,
existing and planned operating systems. The available data were completed by preliminary waste
examination based on the methodology developed in the frame of another Project within the 5th FP
called SWA-Tool. (SWA-Tool, 2003).
The original SWA Tool Project methodology of waste sorting consisted of the following steps:
1. Screening of waste sample by 40 mm screen,
2. Screening of fraction < 40 mm by 10 mm screen,
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3. Manual sorting of fractions > 40 mm and 10-40 mm in 12 main categories divided in
subcategories (35 types of subcategories in one fraction)
4. Weighing each sorted fraction
In Wroclaw during analysis it was found that there is a need to divide fraction> 40 mm into 2
following subfractions:

40-100 mm, and

> 100 mm
These subfractions were sorted into 11 main categories divided in subcategories and then weighted.
The categories and subcategories of waste are presented in the table 1, according to SWA Tool
Project methodology.
Table.1. Main categories and subcategories of municipal waste
PRIMARY
CATEGORIES
SECONDARY CATEGORIES
Biodegradable Kitchen/Canteen
Waste
Biodegradable Garden/Park
Waste
Other Biodegradable Waste
Untreated Wood
Wood
Treated Wood
Paper and High gloss paper/card and
Cardboard wallpapers
Paper/card – packaging
Newspapers
Organic
Plastics
Other Paper/card– non
packaging
Plastic Film –packaging
PRIMARY
CATEGORIES
SECONDARY CATEGORIES
Textiles
Clothes
Non-clothing textiles
Metals
Hazardous
Household
Waste
Complex
Products
Plastic Film – non packaging
Dense Plastic Bottles/Jars (P)
Inert
Dense Plastic – other packaging
Dense Plastic –non packaging Other
Categories
Glass
Glass Container Packaging
Clear
Glass Container Packaging
Brown
Glass Container Packaging
Other
Miscellaneous Non Packaging
Glass
Ferrous Packaging
Non-ferrous Packaging
Miscellaneous Ferrous
Miscellaneous Nonferrous
Batteries/Accumulators
Miscellaneous hazardous
waste
Composite/Complex
Packaging
Composite/Complex Nonpackaging
Mixed WEEE
Soil and Stones
Miscellaneous inert
Nappies
Health Care/Biological
Wastes
Miscellaneous Categories
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In our opinion, such methology seems to be more useful for further waste management designs than
the original one proposed by SWA Tool.
4. Results and discussion
The modified SWA tool analyses were performed only In Wroclaw and Nitra. Two other cities
delivered archival data
Below the example graphs with average composition of waste for all the cities are presented
Waste composition-KAUNAS
Waste composition-XANTHI
Other noncombustible
(inerts)
9%
Other
combustible
Paper and
cardboard
15%
Glass
2%
1%
Paper and
cardboard
14%
Other noncombustible
(inerts)
2%
Glass
11%
Other
combustible
17%
Metals
3%
Metals
7%
Hazardous
waste
8%
Plastics and
composites
3%
Bio-waste
55%
Inert
1%
Other
Categories
3%
Fines < 10
mm
3%
Other
Categories
4%
Fines < 10
mm
13%
Organic
34%
Inert
9%
Complex
Products
3%
Glass
6%
Organic
59%
Plastics
8%
Paper and
Cardboard
9%
Bio-waste
44%
Waste composition-WROCLAW
Waste composition-NITRA
Complex
Products
Hazardous 3%
Waste
1%
Metals
2%
Textiles
3%
Plastics
and
composites
9%
Wood
1%
Metals
2%
Textiles
2%
Wood
2%
Glass
14%
Plastics
10%
Paper and
Cardboard
8%
Fig. 1. Waste composition in the cities under study
It is very difficult to make comparisons among the results of waste analysis in all the cities. The
main reason is:

methodology (S.W.A Tool was used only in Nitra and Wroclaw)
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
season of the year (2004: end of March for Wroclaw, April-May for Nitra, March-April for
Kaunas, year 1993 for Xanthi)
The most important differences between waste composition in Wroclaw and Nitra (taking into
account the whole city without stratification: graphs 1 and 4) concern the contents of organic waste,
fines, glass and inerts. There is much more organics in waste from Nitra (59 %) than in Wroclaw
(34 %) what in consequence influences the other fractions content. Wastes generated in Nitra
contain less glass, inerts and fines than wastes in Wroclaw. But this could be due to the season of
the year. The end of March is still in Poland a heating season and this time the food waste contain
only few vegetables and fruits. In April and May the nourishment composition changes
significantly. The 44% of biowaste from Kaunas , independent of the methodology, confirms the
tendency of this kind of waste to grow in summers months.
The results of waste composition analyses serve as inputs for creating MWM models.
In the model developed within Project LCA-IWM inputs comprise the percentage of each fraction
as part of the total MSW streams: Total MSW = Residual waste + all separately collected fractions:
organic waste (garden and biowaste, paper and cardboard, glass, metals, plastics and composites,
hazardous waste, WEEE and other materials.
In the case of data lack it’s possible to put default values into the model.
The designed scenarios will employ different waste treatment/disposal technologies with diverse
levels of complexity. In LCA-IWM Project there were: temporary storage, collection and transport,
composting/ digestion plant, aerobic/ anaerobic MBP plant, incineration plant, landfill and waste
recycling processes.
The models consisting of the same processes (McDougall, 2001) require more data as inputs, i.e.
collected household and commercial waste the composition (% by weight) comprising paper, glass,
metal (ferrous and non ferrous), plastic (film and rigid), textiles, organics and others. For delivered
household waste additionally: bulky (kg/hh/year), glass, non-ferrous metal, garden and other.
5. Conclusions
1. During the Project realisation noticeable difficulties in data collection were observed. Many
data were not available at this time because lack of full control of waste management on the
municipal level. Additionally, for confidentiality reasons some companies operating waste
management systems refused to disclose the necessary data,
2. The models for designing MWM described in the literature need primary categories as inputs
concerning waste composition .Very often in the case of lack of data default values can be use.
Our research so far apart from dividing waste into secondary categories, comprises also the
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examination of physico-chemical waste composition . It is vital to specify the fertilizing and
calorific values of waste, which are indispensable for the final choice of MWM processes.
Consequently, well chosen technologies will result in better more complex and reliable system.
The systems should be flexible enough to account for the technological advances and the quality
of the product in order to adjust to the planned UE legal regulation changes (i.e Biowaste
Directive) and their implement to the Polish law.
3. Detailed waste examination is necessary to the realisation of following, listed in NWMP tasks:

developing the selective methods of the municipal waste collection,

initiating and developing the modern technologies of the waste disposal and recovery,
including the methods of the biological and thermic processing,

intensifying the recovery and disposal of the bulky, building and hazardous waste,
belonging to the group of the municipal waste.
.
6. References
1. The Act of 27 April 2001 on Waste,Journal of Laws No. 62, item 628, 2001
2. European Environment Agency EEA (2003a) EEA multilingual environmental glossary, available at:
http://glossary.eea.eu.int/EEAGlossary/H/household_waste
3. European Waste Catalogue, OJ L 226, 6.9.2000, p. 3
4. Fischer, C.; Crowe, M.: „Household and municipal waste: Comparability of data in EEA member
countries“. European Environment Agency, topic report No 3/2000, Copenhagen 2000.
5.
The Use of Life Cycle Assessment Tools for the Development of Integrated Waste Management
Strategies for Cities and Regions with Rapid Growing Economies, FP Project EVK4-CT-2002-0087,
2002-2005
6. McDougall F., Franke M., Hindle P., Integrated Solid Waste Management: A Life Cycle Inventory (2nd
edition), Publisher: Blackwell Science Ltd., 2001, ISBN 0-632-05889-7
7. The National Waste Management Plan, Resolution No. 219 of the Council of Minister of 29 October
2002 on the Polish Monitor, The Official Journal of the Republic of Poland No. 11
8. Polish Waste Catalogue, Journal of Laws No.112, item 1206, 2001
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