Assessment Strategies for Municipal Selective Waste Collection – Regional Waste Management

Waste disposal in landfill sites causes a potential hazard for the human health, as they release substantial amounts of gas, odours and pollutants to the environment. There have been vast reductions in the volume of waste being landfilled in many European countries and a reduction in the number of illegal landfills. The European Parliament’s laws obliged the Member States to amend the national waste law; the main objectives of the implemented directives are to create the conditions for the prevention of excessive waste. Directive 2008/98/EC establishes, as a goal for 2020, that waste reuse and recycling reach 50% of the total waste produced. Poland, having joined the European Union, committed itself to implementing many changes related to waste management. The amendment of the law on the maintenance of cleanliness and order in the municipalities imposed new obligations regarding the waste management (WM) on the local government and residents. By adopting a municipal waste management system, the selected municipality made all its residents responsible for their waste. However, the fact of introducing changes does not solve the waste problem. The implementation of EU directives and the development of strategic documents such as the National Waste Management Plan (NWMP) have made a clear change in the WM approach. One of the changes was the establishment of selective collection of municipal selective waste (MSW), with the issue of collecting the waste by the residents being a priority. This work describes the legal context of selective collection of MSW as one of the most effective means of reducing the amount of waste being landfilled.