On Friday 14 May, the Bulgarian Association of Municipal Environmental Experts (BAMEE), one of SMART WASTE partners, held its 2021 annual Assembly online.
SMART WASTE's Lead Partner, the Resource Recovery Regional Agency (ARRR), joined the afternoon session of the Assembly to present the situation regarding food and green waste management in Tuscany, the SMART WASTE project and its activities to support innovation in waste management, related good practices & possible policy improvements.
An overview of SMART WASTE's aims, activities implemented so far and tasks under development served as a general introduction to the presentation's main topic.
Concerning municipal biodegradable waste in Tuscany, food waste separate collection amounts to over 372,000 tonnes in 2019. It is thus the first waste stream from separate collection in terms of quantity. The third waste stream from separate collection in terms of quantity is green waste from separate collection of municipal waste. It amounts to almost 130,000 tonnes collected in 2019.
226 Municipalities out of 273 have implemented separate collection systems for food waste; these Municipalities account for 97% of Tuscany's population. 100 Municipalities have only door-to-door collection systems, 50 Municipalities have only curbside collection systems and 76 Municipalities have both systems (49% of population).
The situation is slightly more complex when it comes to green waste collection systems. Indeed, most of the Municipalities use a combination of 2 or more collection systems. The most common is collection centres (214 Municipalities) and on-demand collection services (134 Municipalities).
When it comes to food and green waste recycling plants, Tuscany currently relies on aerobic composting plants, mostly public-owned. Biodegradable municipal waste from separate collection currently exceeds existing recycling capacities in Tuscany and this is the reason why in the last three years Tuscany approved projects for new anaerobic digestion facilities, envisioning also bio methane production from biodegradable waste.
A discussion following the presentation allowed for a further deepening of both SMART WASTE activities and municipal biodegradable waste management's points of attention.
View the presentation here.
More on BAMEE's Annual Assembly here.
