Abstract
In 2016, six new municipal waste combustion plants will be operating in Poland. These projects, located in: Bialystok, Bydgoszcz, Konin, Krakow, Poznan and Szczecin, will influence waste management in Poland as well as change energy security of the country. So far in Poland only one Waste-to-Energy (WtE) plant, i.e. in the capital city of Warsaw, has been operating. Unfortunately, this is not enough, taking into account Polish economic development in the last years. Polish accession to the European Union (EU) significantly influenced the development of the industry which resulted in increased production of waste while the management system was not prepared to handle it in the proper way so there was a big amount of waste. The main way to deal with waste in Poland was, and still is, landfilling which can be in many ways dangerous for the environment. The EU law have put pressure on Polish Waste Management Systems and results are visible in currently realized Waste-to-Energy projects.This work analysis of the aforementioned 6 projects from economic (project value, funding from the European Union) and technological (used technology, waste throughout, availability etc.) point of view together with their impact on the entire waste management system and energy security. What is more, history of similar facilities in Poland is presented, what shows how many projects were prepared, how many fell through and time frame of finally realised projects (start of construction and the planned completion).Conclusions show why in the current situation development of Polish WtE infrastructure is right, i.e. operation of aforementioned plants that will ensure benefits associated with energy production, reduction of landfilling and informing public opinion regarding modern waste management models. Additionally, the article draws attention on the high responsibility that will be put on WtE plants operators and that experience gained during WtE implementation can be used to improve even further for future Polish Waste Management Systems.
Highlights
The amount of generated municipal waste is increasing, while European Union (EU) environmental requirements are becoming stricter, forcing the Polish government apparatus to implement reliable and effective waste management programmes
In countries with advanced waste treatment systems the WtE infrastructure is an integrated part of the waste management system
WtE plant for Cracow has been considered since 1992 [20] and the indicative list of WtE projects in the Operational Programme Infrastructure and Environment (OPIE) for the years 2007 to 2013, takes into account 12 new WtE plants to build in Poland during the 2007-2014 period [21]
Summary
The technical basis of energy recovery from municipal waste combustion, is to use generated thermal energy embedded in flue gases to produce steam at high temperature and pressure. Such steam is used to drive a turbine generator and/or for heating purposes. Modern WtE facilities that are equipped in advanced systems for waste processing, environmental control, and materials recovery, maintain both high energy efficiency and pollutants emission below EU and regional limits. Municipal waste combustion is highly related with aforementioned areas and it turns out that for each of them it brings a number of benefits Those benefits are described later in this article, mainly on basis of Polish economy example
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