The Improvement in Collection of Municipal Waste on the Example of a Chosen Municipality

Abstract

Ecologistics is the concept which in Poland is not commonly known and is defined differently. The new Waste Act which entered into force in 2013, rose interests in logistics aspects which improve municipality management. Despite many positive aspects which are the result of the new regulations, there is still a lot of chaos and lack of arrangement. Companies and municipalities started to calculate costs which turned out to be much higher than it had been expected. That is why the issues concerning proper management and effectiveness of waste collection are of key importance. Waste management became one of the most important aspects of municipality management, which is very often not only evaluated by scientists, but first and foremost by citizens.The author made an attempt to examine the optimization potential in terms of waste disposal management in Krakow municipality. Improvement in route planning influenced the rise in effectiveness of the performed processes, at the same time lowering the costs of the waste disposal system management. Shortening the time of transport operations caused an increase in transportation fleet availability and possibility to make use of it in the other parts of the city.The study was based on analyzing four routes of municipal waste collection carried out by a disposal company for the Municipal Cleaning Service in Kraków on 4 different days.