Tasks of Municipalities in the Field of Municipal Waste Management in Poland and Sources of Their Financing

Janina Kotlińska

The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin , Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4206-0450

Helena Żukowska

The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin , Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0730-195X

Abstract

The study presents the issue of municipal waste management, including its financial aspects. The aim of this article is to describe the municipal waste management system in Poland in organizational and financial terms and to indicate its strengths and weaknesses. The analysis covered: 1) the number of landfills to which municipal waste was transported and the waste storage area, 2) the mass of municipal waste generated per capita by voivodships in Poland, 3) the mass of municipal waste collected, including from households, in the total mass of waste, 4) the share of selectively collected waste in the total weight of collected waste, 5) the mass and structure of selectively collected waste, 6) income, including income from fees and expenses of the municipal waste management system, 7) the level of financing the costs of the municipal waste management system with income from fees, by types of communes and municipal associations dealing with municipal waste management.
The leading research hypothesis of this article is an indication that the municipal waste management system in Poland, functioning as part of the duties of local government units, is characterized by good organizational and financial efficiency, although it still needs to improve in order to achieve the European Union’s economic policy priority of transforming itself into a circular economy. The research methods were: a critical analysis of the literature of the subject, descriptive method, methods of synthesis and analysis of statistical data based on the resources of official statistics of the EU (Eurostat) and Poland (Local Data Bank of the Central Statistical Office and the Ministry of Finance). The research period analyzed is generally the years 2013–2022, however, in relation to some issues, due to the lack of data, the research period is shorter and covers the years 2015–2021. The financial aspects of municipal waste management functioning were examined for the period 2013–2021.
General conclusion from the conducted research: local government units in Poland fulfil the task of municipal waste management properly, although it is not easy, especially since the scale of the related problems is large and spatially diversified. Detailed conclusions: in the years 2013–2022 in Poland: 1) the number of active landfills decreased, and the mass of municipal waste generated, including by households, increased, 2) the least municipal waste per capita is generated in the provinces of south-eastern Poland, where the level of wealth of the population is the lowest and the poverty risk index is the highest in the country, 3) the ratio of segregated municipal waste has improved (in 2013 it was 13.5%, and in 2022 – 39.9%), 4) waste collected separately constitutes a significant part intended for storage, i.e. using the simplest method, 5) inter-communal municipal associations specialized in this area function most effectively in the municipal waste management system, followed by cities and towns with poviat rights, the least effective being rural communes, 6) income from municipal waste management, including mainly fees paid by property owners, have increased more than 10 times globally, while the global costs of the waste management system have increased 5 times.

Keywords:

municipal waste, municipal waste management, financing of waste management in Poland