Age Structure and Municipal Waste Generation and Recycling – New Challenge for the Circular Economy
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| Year of publication | 2016 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | Municipal waste generation and treatment represent important parts in the circular economy approach, which is being more and more soundly promoted by the European Union among its members. While the issue of industrial waste stream is developing quite progressively, the issue of municipal waste remains a challenge. Compared to the industry, municipalities tend to produce a greater diversity of waste with lower overall recycling rates, and therefore the approach to deal with it has to be more complex. Municipalities play a very important role in promoting the prevention and separation of the waste produced by its citizens. But in order to that effectively, it is necessary to identify how various groups of people behave in terms of their waste generation and tendencies to separate their waste. In our study we have examined the relationships between the age structure of people in the municipalities, their municipal solid waste generation per capita, and their per capita waste separation levels. We have used data from Czech municipalities from years 2011 and 2013. Our results suggest that young people tend to performs best in both aspects, while people aged 50-79 seem to both generate most residual waste per capita and separate the least. Such findings can be used by the municipalities in order to target more precisely those age groups that have the highest potential for improvement in the context of municipal solid waste management, instead of focusing on those age groups that are performing already well. |
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