Analysis of the Long-Term Mass Balance and Efficiency of Waste Recovery in a Municipal Waste Biodrying Plant

Abstract

The aim of this study was to determine the role of an installation based on biodrying of municipal waste in a Circular Economy by taking into account the quantitative and qualitative changes in its selectively collected waste stream. As a case study, the Mechanical-Biological municipal waste treatment installation in Olsztyn, Poland, was selected, which is equipped with a separate section for valorizing the selectively collected waste stream. The scope of the work included a complete mass balance of the waste treatment plant, an assessment of the technological efficiency of the municipal waste biodrying installation, and determination of the changes in the main waste from 2016 to 2020. This paper proposes an empirical method for estimating process loss during biodrying and provides many technological results. The average process loss was 23.47%, and on average, 88.9% of the waste produced by biodrying consisted of the Refuse-Derived Fuel fraction. The recovery of commercial assortments from selectively collected waste increased from 84.82% in 2016 to 89.26% in 2020. Considering the current morphology of municipal waste in this region, the maximum share of waste subjected to material and organic recycling processes in the analyzed region could be increased to around 60%, which indicates that Circular Economy targets can be achieved. This work should provide a compendium of information for countries implementing a Circular Economy.

Keywords

• circular economy
• municipal waste
• biodrying
• mechanical-biological treatment
• mass balance
• waste recovery