Solid waste management in urban space: the volume-weight relationship

Abstract

One of the most significant and growing negative pressures on the environment is the amount of generated waste. Surprisingly, the literature on this topic is mainly focused on monitoring the waste weight instead of volume, which is crucial for waste management in urban space. This paper is dedicated to this issue in two ways. First of all the study shows the difference in waste generation rates monitored in Poznań - a major city in Poland, during one year of field research focused on waste volume and its relationship to administrative data about waste weight. Secondly, it describes the volume-weight relationship based on the collection point sensors and a dynamic weighing system installed on a garbage truck and proposes a more accurate weight to volume conversion method.

Keywords

• waste generation
• monitoring
• solid waste management
• volume-weight relationship
• seasonal variability