The Potential for Future Material Recovery of Municipal Solid Waste: Inputs for Sustainable Infrastructure Planning

Abstract

The aim of the EU is to maximize material recovery from waste and minimize landfilling. For continuous development within the upcoming years, the circular economy package has been issued. It sets out gradually the goals of more efficient waste management. The waste production under the current conditions does not meet the EU targets in many states. The future waste management planning should take into account simultaneously both materially recoverable waste and the waste suitable for energy utilization. In this regard, the important aspect is their direct dependency and keeping the balance for a constant amount of produced waste for each year. The waste production can be forecasted, so it changes within the time horizon. Also, the interdependence of the targets changes other treatment ways, since landfilling significantly affects the residual amount of waste. However, approaches for assessing possible scenarios for the future development of waste production play a key role in transitions to cleaner treatment. Waste production scenarios are modeled to achieve recycling and landfilling targets. In order to integrate these connections into the infrastructure planning process, a penalty function for the potential of increase of material recovery is presented. Such a penalty differs among the regions within the analyzed area and is also waste type related. The approach is demonstrated using data from the EU member state – the Czech Republic is approximately average in the waste landfilling and recycling between EU member states. The results of this study define the potential of increase of material recovery for individual micro-regions of the Czech Republic. It represents a crucial input for multi-stage decision-making, which is usually modeled by mathematical programming. It can be integrated into the objective function, where it changes the cost of infrastructure modification. Systematic planning in waste management and infrastructure modification is highly required in the Czech Republic to meet the Circular Economy Package goals.