engleski

Perception of Waste Management Technologies – Environmental and Economic Sustainability Analysis

EU has developed a great economy capable of generating huge wealth for its citizens. One of the problems of this is the production of large quantities of waste from which only 47% is recovered. The reason for this partly lies in the sluggishness of EU policymaking, and partly in the slow adaptation of changes by member states. Waste management systems are usually modeled as systems that are funded by the system users/citizens and provide a public waste management service and must be able to meet environmental sustainability requirements at a cost that is acceptable to citizens, which is not the same for citizens of all member states. This is very important from the decision-makers' point of view because they are usually elected by the system users. While decision-making needs to consider a wide range of possible technologies, waste legislation, and take into account future developments, it is at the same time constrained by user satisfaction. Therefore, decision-making needs to take into account the environmental and economic viability of the considered systems as well as legislative goals. While recyclable materials are materially recovered, a non- recyclable portion can be treated within a range of thermochemical and biological treatment facilities or disposed of. This study looks upon the environmental sustainability of different waste management systems through the use of the Cumulative Energy Demand indicator which analyses sustainability from a lifecycle perspective. The used model was further extended with technology-based economic functions to compare the economic sustainability of the analyzed systems. The relation of two calculated indicators defined the Economic Efficiency of Resource Recovery index which shows the specific cost for achieving specific resource recovery. A defined index represents a good benchmarking tool for waste management systems, while its graphical representation enables the easier presentation of the results, comparison of possible solutions, and decision making. The obtained results show that decision-makers need to take into account the impacts of expected changes on the overall sustainability and evaluate their influence on the perception of technologies that are used. It can be concluded that waste management system planning needs to ecomaps more than just the waste management system itself and encompass the connecting systems which provide support in meeting legislation goals in an economically sustainable way.

environmental sustainability ; waste management systems ; economic sustainability ; cost of recovery

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