Sustainable Municipal Waste Management during the COVID-19 Pandemic—A Case Study of Poland

With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the waste management sector had to face new challenges, e.g., changes in the size and composition of the waste stream, or the presence of potentially infectious waste. This article is based on a case study in Poland. The data analysis showed that the incre...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Resources (Basel) 2023-06, Vol.12 (7), p.76
Main Authors: Urbańska, Weronika, Janda, Anna, Osial, Magdalena, Słowikowski, Mateusz
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Case studies
Circular economy
Consumption
COVID-19
COVID-19 pandemic
Data analysis
Disease transmission
Environmental aspects
Environmental protection
Epidemics
Food packaging
Food waste
Garbage collection
Households
Infectious wastes
Management decisions
Medical wastes
Methods
municipal waste
Municipal waste management
Municipal wastes
Pandemics
Prevention
Quarantine
Raw materials
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2
Statistical analysis
Sustainable development
sustainable development goals
Waste management
Waste streams
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Summary:With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the waste management sector had to face new challenges, e.g., changes in the size and composition of the waste stream, or the presence of potentially infectious waste. This article is based on a case study in Poland. The data analysis showed that the increase in municipal waste mass during the pandemic did not differ from statistics observed in previous years and ranged from 0.3 to 0.5 million tons per year. Lifestyle changes caused a decrease in the amount of waste generated outside households. Social migrations contributed to rapid changes in the mass of waste generated in selected agglomerations by up to 80 kg/capita. In the waste stream, significant amounts of specific groups of waste related to the pandemic (“corona waste”) as well as packaging and food waste were noted. Despite the pandemic, in 2020, Poland recorded an increase in selective waste collection by 6.7 percentage points (pp.) Data on municipal waste management showed an increase in the mass of waste sent for recycling by 0.7 million tons, while the mass of landfilled waste decreased by 0.3 million tons. The observed positive changes in waste management allow the implementation of sustainable development assumptions to a greater extent.
ISSN:2079-9276
2079-9276
DOI:10.3390/resources12070076