<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Waste management system is a complex system involving numerous waste streams, collection schemes, treatment processes and various actors. Bus as well as many other systems, waste management is recently experiencing new and more sustainable development trends including the promotion of circular economy and increased material recycling. Hence there is a need for the implementation of an improved waste management system that requires a significant and thorough planning stage, the results of which will significantly depend on the availability of detailed information of the possible waste flows and waste composition. The aim of this paper is to experimentally determine and analyse the composition of unsorted municipal waste to provide assessment for incorporating waste composition analysis into further planning and modelling of a next generation waste management system in Latvia. The experimental results indicate that the unsorted municipal waste stream comprises of up to 32.9 % of recyclable materials and 29.2 % of biodegradable wastes. Thus almost 60 % of the waste currently being subjected to unsorted waste management system in Latvia could potentially be source separated ensuring higher quality of the recovered materials and promoting circular value chains. The results indicate a slight difference between waste composition in different waste management regions, thus noting that, in addition to the number of inhabitants and their habits, the local system in each waste management region may influence the composition of the collected wastes.</p></abstract>

Waste management system is a complex system involving numerous waste streams, collection schemes, treatment processes and various actors. Bus as well as many other systems, waste management is recently experiencing new and more sustainable development trends including the promotion of circular economy and increased material recycling. Hence there is a need for the implementation of an improved waste management system that requires a significant and thorough planning stage, the results of which will significantly depend on the availability of detailed information of the possible waste flows and waste composition. The aim of this paper is to experimentally determine and analyse the composition of unsorted municipal waste to provide assessment for incorporating waste composition analysis into further planning and modelling of a next generation waste management system in Latvia. The experimental results indicate that the unsorted municipal waste stream comprises of up to 32.9 % of recyclable materials and 29.2 % of biodegradable wastes. Thus almost 60 % of the waste currently being subjected to unsorted waste management system in Latvia could potentially be source separated ensuring higher quality of the recovered materials and promoting circular value chains. The results indicate a slight difference between waste composition in different waste management regions, thus noting that, in addition to the number of inhabitants and their habits, the local system in each waste management region may influence the composition of the collected wastes.

Towards Efficient Waste Management in Latvia: An Empirical Assessment of Waste Composition

Institute of Energy Systems and Environment

Environmental and Climate Technologies

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Waste management system is a complex system involving numerous waste streams, collection schemes, treatment processes and various actors. Bus as well as many...

Towards Efficient Waste Management in Latvia: An Empirical Assessment of Waste Composition

Published Online: Nov 18, 2019

Page range: 114 - 130

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/rtuect-2019-0059

Keywords
Circular economy, multiple regression analysis, waste composition analysis, waste management system

© 2019 Anna Kubule et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Towards Efficient Waste Management in Latvia: An Empirical Assessment of Waste Composition

Published Online: Nov 18, 2019

Page range: 114 - 130

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/rtuect-2019-0059

KeywordsCircular economy, multiple regression analysis, waste composition analysis, waste management system

© 2019 Anna Kubule et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Keywords
Circular economy, multiple regression analysis, waste composition analysis, waste management system