Publication detail

Strategic decisions leading to sustainable waste management: Separation, sorting and recycling possibilities

PLUSKAL, J. ŠOMPLÁK, R. NEVRLÝ, V. SMEJKALOVÁ, V. PAVLAS, M.

Original Title

Strategic decisions leading to sustainable waste management: Separation, sorting and recycling possibilities

Type

journal article in Web of Science

Language

English

Original Abstract

A circular economy is a trendy word, which encompasses reaching of closed-loop in all industries. This also applies to the waste management sector, where new regulations and directives have been issued. Given milestones, however, do not have to correspond with economic or even environmental sustainability. Thus, it is more than necessary to evaluate waste management system using these criteria and present supportive or contradictory statements. An approach for such a complex assessment is proposed. It uses mathematical programming models and multi-objective strategy to suggest a suitable number and locations for waste treatment and pre-treatment facilities. Only main fractions of municipal solid waste are considered – plastic, paper, glass and mixed municipal waste. The environmental part covers the production of greenhouse gases respecting all processes in the system, excluding transportation. Based on comprehensive research, non-linear dependencies were estimated for costs and sorting efficiencies. The mathematical model uses an iterative procedure to avoid non-linearity. Afterwards, the case study of Czech treatment infrastructure is designed. The approach resulted in the establishment of 14, and 42 sorting lines for plastics and paper, respectively, supported by 20 Waste-to-Energy plants with different capacity. An interesting output says that in an optimal situation, out of total sorted plastics and paper, only 25% and 79% will be recycled, while the remaining amount ends up in Waste-to-Energy plant. Further research will include additional fractions, such as bio-waste, oils or textile, as it is being collected these days separately. Other directions involve new targets from the real-operated sorting lines and new conditions related to investment for more fractions treated at a single site.

Keywords

Municipal solid waste; Separation rate; Sorting efficiency; Recycling efficiency; Multi-objective model; Circular economy package

Authors

PLUSKAL, J.; ŠOMPLÁK, R.; NEVRLÝ, V.; SMEJKALOVÁ, V.; PAVLAS, M.

Released

1. 1. 2021

Publisher

Elsevier Ltd

Location

UK

ISBN

0959-6526

Periodical

Journal of Cleaner Production

Year of study

278

Number

1 January

State

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Pages from

1

Pages to

16

Pages count

16

URL

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.123359

BibTex

@article{BUT164861,
  author="Jaroslav {Pluskal} and Radovan {Šomplák} and Vlastimír {Nevrlý} and Veronika {Smejkalová} and Martin {Pavlas}",
  title="Strategic decisions leading to sustainable waste management: Separation, sorting and recycling possibilities",
  journal="Journal of Cleaner Production",
  year="2021",
  volume="278",
  number="1 January",
  pages="1--16",
  doi="10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.123359",
  issn="0959-6526",
  url="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.123359"
}