Global solid waste. A case of Poland

 

Over the past five years, Poland has shown an increase in waste generation with 13.1 million tonnes of municipal waste generated in 2020. This corresponds to 346 kg/cap which is below the EU average of 505kg/cap. However, the country still heavily relies on landfilling. In 2020 the overall landfilling rate of Poland was 39.8% At the end of 2019, 286 legal landfills and 1,868 wild dumps were still counted nationwide.

National Waste Management Plan 2022 showed that Poland generates 36.6% of green waste with only a third of it being treated. Poland’s total recycling waste is at 55.5 % with paper and cardboard, metals and wood exceeding the EU 2025 average target of 65%, however the plastic is well below the target (18.5 percentage points).

Legislation:

• National Waste Management Plan (NWMP) 2022 was adopted in Poland to reduce the amount of waste generated and to increase recycling and reuse. It also proposed large-scale investments in certain collection sites, separate collection, and conversion of MBT plants to sort separately collected dry recyclables fractions and compost bio-waste.
• Poland, being one of the EU members states, has renewed its waste legislation recently to comply with the EU waste legislation – Waste Framework Directive and the Directive on packaging and packaging waste 2025.

Advantages:

• Poland generates less MSW that the average EU country although the waste numbers are increasing year-on-year.
• There is a growing importance on investment in waste-to-energy solutions.
• Geographically placed, Poland can take advantage of its neighbouring countries and their advanced recycling technology (67% if waste shipments from Poland go to Germany)

Disadvantages: 

• Large percentage of MSW still ends up in landfills and the lack of adequate penalty charges allows for wild dumps to continue to exist.
• The infrastructure in Poland can not cope with the amount of waste generated (e.g. treatment capacity for bio-waste in Poland amounts to 1.5 million tonnes with 4.7 million of bio-waste generated)
• Poland is unlikely to meet the EU targets of 2025 (the current recycling rate in Poland is 38.7% and the target for all EU states is 55%) (recycling rate for total packaging waste is 9.5% below the 2025 target of 65%)

In my opinion, the current disposal options in Poland are not adequate to address the growing number of MSW and the large use of landfills as a solution. The 2035 EU target to reduce the amount of MSW landfilled to 10% or less is a very large task for Poland. The country needs bold and quick solutions, investment in technology and legal instruments to tackle the disposal problems in wild dumps.