About the project
The project focus is on one of the most challenging issues concerning current environmental protection – effective and well-balanced municipal waste management.
There is no doubt that increasing urbanization contributes to increasing municipal waste generation. Unfortunately many countries, including Poland, still dispose the majority of wastes in landfills.
Legislative changes that should have resulted in some improvement of this situation were introduced in Poland on 1st July 2013. According to them, local authorities are now responsible for municipal waste. They decide who collects waste, in what way, when, and how much citizens should pay for waste collection services. However, due to lack of experience in organizing and managing waste collection services and poor information about the exact amount of waste generated, the reality has been far from satisfactory. The organization and management of waste collection services has been particularly problematic in big cities, which have complex urban structures and are socio-demographically diverse.
Many urban residents in Poland question recent decisions made by municipal authorities regarding the organization of waste disposal services. One of the most problematic issues is the calculation method of waste collection fee. The method takes into account only one factor that may influence the waste generation levels in households. Since there is limited information about waste generated in different parts of the city, the choice of a factor is really difficult. This difficulty is exacerbated by the fact that spatial heterogeneity of waste generation in an urban area, related to such characteristics as settlement type, is not taken into account. Instead, one flat fee per household is used for the entire city. Such a simplistic solution is common for Polish cities, including Poznań, which is research object of the project.
Our goal
The research’s main goal is an investigation of relations that exist between socioeconomic factors and the amount of municipal waste collected from different areas of the city. The empirical data on waste distribution collect for the project will be the base for waste generation modeling.
The results of the project will support more effective planning of waste collection systems and will create a template for incorporating GIS tools into this process in the form of a prototype spatial decision support system.
Findings
The work results were described in detail in the doctoral dissertation by Ph.D. Eng. Patrycja Przewoźna, which can be found in the publications section. There are also scientific publications that have already been created in connection with the implemented project and will be published based on the obtained results.