Under the Waste Act, municipalities must ensure that at least 60% of all municipal waste is being sorted by 2025. According to Jana Soukopová, an expert in waste and circular economy, this is an ambitious requirement that many may not be able to meet. Why do small towns pay for sorted waste? And can we generate electricity and heat by processing it appropriately?
In the interview, you’ll use the terms ‘waste sorting’ and ‘recycling’. Are they synonyms, or is there a difference between them?
They’re terms that are confused by both students and the public in general. Waste sorting and recycling are different processes. Waste sorting means separating the components of municipal waste, such as glass, paper, plastic, bio-waste, or e-waste, into coloured containers designed to collect specific materials. Recycling, on the other hand, is the process of dealing with waste that leads to its reuse. In simple terms, the recycling rate is the percentage of how much of the sorted waste is subsequently reused. Therefore, costs related to waste sorting rather than recycling are what municipalities incur.
What specific costs do municipalities have to deal with?
The highest costs are related to the collection of waste – both separated and municipal waste. This is usually provided by a private or public collection company, which is paid for by the municipality on the basis of the weight of the waste produced or the frequency of collection. For sorted waste, the municipality can receive a contribution from the authorised company EKO-KOM. Municipalities also pay for the operation of a collection yard or collection centre, for cleaning public areas, and for collecting municipal waste bins, usually carried out by municipal employees or local technical services.
Municipal waste management is very complex and it’s difficult to simply summarise all costs. Many municipalities have their own waste processing facilities, such as composting plants, biogas plants, energy recovery facilities, and so on. In such cases, municipalities incur both the costs associated with their operation and the revenue from the processing of this waste.
Do municipalities know how much of the sorted waste can be recycled?
It’s difficult for municipalities to know how much of the sorted waste has been recycled. They have a big influence on the sorting process, but very little influence on recycling.
What problems does this bring?
Well, in particular, municipalities do not have an option to decide to which facilities the sorted waste will be taken to, how far away they are located, and how much the municipalities will pay for it. This is determined by the collection company. For example, when oil prices decreased a few years ago, it was not profitable at all for collection companies to transport plastics for processing, and so most of them ended up in a waste-to-energy plant, so-called ZEVO SAKO Brno, or in a landfill. Landfilling is the worst option for waste disposal, and municipalities have had very little opportunity to influence this.
Are there enough facilities in the Czech Republic to process different types of waste?
That’s a very good question and the answer is no. There are few waste processing facilities not only in the Czech Republic but also in the European Union as a whole. Particularly in the context of the current energy crisis, we should aim to build, for example, more waste-to-energy plants that produce electricity and heat when burning waste. For example, the ZEVO helps to heat a number of housing estates in Brno. Other facilities also make this possible, and we need to look for opportunities and innovative solutions for waste reuse and processing.
In Brno, for example, investment in a biogas plant for processing bio-waste with a capacity of ten to twenty thousand tonnes of bio-waste per year is planned. A 500 kW biogas plant can produce as much electricity as a thousand households with an average consumption of 4,000 kWh/year need. And such facilities can then help municipalities not only process waste but also to meet the objectives of the Waste Act and EU circular economy packages by converting waste into electricity and heat.
What are the current Czech and EU requirements for waste management and recycling?
The main requirement that may concern municipalities and, consequently, citizens in the future are waste sorting goals. The Waste Act sets relatively ambitious aims. It requires municipalities to ensure that they sort at least 60% of their total waste by 2025. This includes paper, plastics, glass, metals, biological waste, edible oils and fats, hazardous waste, and, from January 2025, textiles. However, this percentage will continue to increase, with municipalities having to sort 65% of all waste by 2030 and 70% by 2035. Another goal relates to landfilling and it requires municipalities to reduce the percentage of municipal waste disposed of in landfills to below 10% by 2025.
Will it be easy for municipalities to meet these requirements?
Between 2018 and 2021 we were working on a project entitled Analysis of the Potential of the South Moravian Region in Relation to Circular Economy which dealt with this topic. We examined how difficult meeting European and domestic targets will be in four pre-selected towns with the greatest potential for a circular economy in the South Moravian Region – Znojmo, Kyjov, Mikulov, and Boskovice. The study showed that meeting these targets will be considerably difficult. Waste sorting is being done at a high level for glass, paper, and plastics. On the other hand, a separate collection of bio-waste and gastro-waste or waste prevention represents something of an opportunity.
The methodology you’re currently working on should help municipalities. What aims does it have in mind?
I’m working on a methodology with my colleagues from the Sustainability and Circularity Institute, Dominika Tóthová and Eduard Bakoš. Our aim is to motivate, educate, and inform citizens in the field of waste sorting. The methodology should serve especially small municipalities as a tool to find simple solutions and ways to motivate their citizens to sort waste more.
Why do you think it’s difficult for municipalities to motivate citizens to sort waste?
Because Czech citizens already sort a big amount of waste. The Czech Republic is one of the countries with the highest waste sorting rates in the EU. From my point of view, the bigger problem is that we’re not able to process certain fractions of the sorted waste, and there are no facilities that would allow us to do so. Also, if citizens really knew what to sort and what not to sort, what can be recycled and what can’t, it would help. There would be a smaller proportion of ‘rejects’ - waste from sorted waste that cannot be processed or otherwise used - in the sorted waste bins. These are the issues we’re addressing in the project Centre of Environmental Research – Waste Management, Circular Economy, and Environmental Security, for which I am the principal investigator for MU. The centre, consisting of a consortium of eight research organisations and universities, is focused on researching thematic areas related to the transition of the Czech Republic from a linear to a circular economic model.
The project Analysis of the Potential of the South Moravian Region in Relation to the Circular Economy (TL01000305) was co-financed with state support from the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic under the ÉTA Programme.
The project Centre of Environmental Research – Waste Management, Circular Economy and Environmental Security (SS02030008) is co-financed with state support from the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic under the Environment for Life Programme.
