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Bio-waste management in the Balkan countries: The cases of Romania, Slovenia, Greece & Bulgaria”

Stavrakakis Georgios, S. Dvorsak, J. Varga, D. D. Surovina

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Summary

The project BALKWASTE (www.balkwaste.eu) is a LIFE – Environment project (LIFE 07 ENV/RO/000686) aiming to promote sustainable waste management planning in the Balkan region and to develop an integrated decision support tool being able to compare and analyze integrated waste management scenarios. An assessment of the waste management status in the four participating countries (Greece, Romania, Slovenia and Bulgaria) was conducted in order to investigate, among others, the existing situation regarding bio-waste management. In addition, a sampling analysis took place in order to determine waste composition in two case study areas in the North-East Region in Romania (6 counties of 3,734,546 inhabitants) and in the Municipality of Razlog in Bulgaria (23,018 inhabitants). The sampling procedure was implemented in two steps. During the first step the following fractions were separated from the random sample: plastic (PET), plastic (PE), paper, metals, glass, textile and wood. The remaining materials like mixed plastic, remaining paper and textile were separated during the second step. The final fraction derived after the two-step separation consisted mainly of organic. The gross results of the sorting analysis in Bulgaria (Romania – mean value of 6 samples) were: plastic 9.2% (12.5%), paper 7.3% (11.1%), metals 0.8% (1.1%), glass 4.4% (3.5%), textile 2.7% (3.0%), wood 1.6% (0.8%), construction waste 15.8% (8.6%), WEEE 0.0% (0.2%) and organic waste 58.3% (59.2%). In the present paper the current status regarding bio-waste management for the four European countries is presented together with the results of the sampling analysis. The assessment of bio-waste management in the four Balkan countries showed that although the National and Regional Waste Management Plans foresee the diversion of organic waste from landfills through separation at source or mechanical biological treatment, the largest share is still landfilled. Only a limited number of treatment facilities is in operation, although the potential for separation at source and treatment in biological treatment facilities is very high, as also confirmed by the sampling analysis. Moreover, separation at source schemes can be found only to a small extent in Slovenia. The results of the waste status assessment will be used during the formulation of alternative waste management scenarios for the DSS Tool and the sorting analysis for its verification in the case study areas selected

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