Assessment of biowaste losses through unsound waste management practices in rural areas and the role of home composting

Abstract

Abstract. The paper examines the biowaste management issues across rural areas of Romania in the context of poor waste management infrastructure in the last decade (2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012). Biowaste is the main fraction of municipal waste, thus a proper management is a key challenge in order to sustain a bioeconomy in the near future. The amount of biowaste generated and uncollected by waste operators is generally uncontrolled disposed if not recovered through home composting. The paper points out the role of home composting in diverting the biowaste from wild dumps and landfills for the regions covered or not by waste collection services. Home composting and the biowaste losses are further assessed based on several scenarios (worse-case, pessimistic, realistic, optimistic) where the net loads of greenhouse gasses (GHG) are calculated at national and regional levels. The transition of home composting techniques, from open piles to plastic bins with respect to standard guidelines will improve the home composting performance in terms of compost quality and net GHG's savings, supporting a bio-based economy which will lead towards a sustainable rural development. Regional disparities are revealed across Romanian counties and the paper opens new research perspectives regarding which options should be adopted by counties and rural municipalities in the biowaste management process.

Waste collection in rural communities: challenges under EU regulations. A case study of Neamt County, Romania

“…The biowaste fraction of household waste is diverted from wild dumpsites via home composting (open piles) and animal feeding. The improvement of home composting 8 procedure in an organized manner will have a better result in terms of compost quality and net GHG's emissions if 70 % of biowaste is processed as a realistic scenario [24]. On the other side, the pre-accession funds helped the other rural communities to provide separate collection services.…”

Qualitative and quantitative characterization of municipal solid waste and the unexploited potential of green energy in Tunisia

“…Along with the MWM issue and analogous to lowand middle-income developing countries, Tunisia has been facing energy deficit issues. Consequently, recent research (e.g., Mihai and Ingrao 2018;Miezah et al 2015;Khandelwal et al 2018;Panepinto and Zanetti 2018;Noya et al 2018) has embarked on assessing schemes of MSW valorization that may enhance energy recovery, human health protection and the environment preservation. Scarlat et al (2015), for instance, have investigated, at the African level, how waste could play a crucial role in providing citizens with energy extracted from waste incineration and from landfill gas (LFG).…”

Introductory Chapter: Rural Waste Management Issues at Global Level

“…The improvement of home composting procedure across rural communities is a cost-eicient and an environmentally friendly solution if it is properly performed avoiding the biowaste losses [13]. Reuse and recycling of various items (glass, plastic botles, construction material, and metal) at household level also mitigate the potential amounts of waste uncontrolled disposed.…”