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ENERGY FROM BIO-WASTE IN SLOVAKIA
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2 METHODOLOGY
Solving research problem is primarily based on the formal reports from the current status of processing bio-waste management in Slovak municipalities. Various expert studies, forecasts and expectations of representatives of national and foreign institutions in terms of the future development of Slovak and European market for biomass utilization. Statistic department of Slovakia plays a key role among data resources. Many foreign and local magazines dedicated to waste management are used.
We have addressed our 29 bio-waste related questions (questionary-form in Google Forms) to 372 slovak municipalities (301 villages and 71 towns). Properly returned were 57 filled-in questionaries.
Afterwards an appropriate analyse was done in MS EXCEL and PSPP program.
3 BIOWASTE (BIO-RESIDUES) AS A PART OF BIOMASS-RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCE (RES)
Our share use of RES in total energy consumption is only about 8%, including large hydropower plants. Biomass has the highest energy potential of all renewable energy sources in Slovakia. If we analyze the energy potential of bio-waste in the municipal sector, we must first take a look to the definition, structure and properties of biological waste. Some anglophone literature indicate the word bio-waste, which we find the most exact, rather then biowaste. Organic waste is part of the municipal waste, while part of the community biomass.
Communal biomass is one of the four sources of biomass itself.
Figure 1 - Biological waste hierarchy. Source: own processing. Notes: Biodegradable municipal waste is a part of Municipal waste
3.1 Biodegradable waste (biowaste;bio-residues)
Biodegradable waste is a waste that is able to disintegrate itself by anaerobic or aerobic manner. For example food waste, paper and cardboard waste, garden waste, waste from parks
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etc.. Biodegradable waste is a significant component of municipal waste. They consist mainly of greenery waste, restaurant and catering waste and other components.
3.2 Current situation in Slovakia in the field of waste treatment
Slovak municipalities face different challenges in responding to the problem of biodegradable waste from households. These challenges can be taken as well as perfect opportunities and motivation for the development of sustainable governance and management of biodegradable waste. Sustainable management process can generate a range of benefits as it moves away from the traditional, unsustainable approach based mainly on waste disposal in landfills(In Slovakia more then 75% of total waste is landfilled). However many private companies already compost their biodegradable waste and, in some cases, decomposition of waste is present. Biowaste can be considered as a renewable energy source because for regeneration of used inventory is needed relatively a short time.
3.3 Waste management in the municipality
Nowadays we can compare administration of Slovak towns and villages to the company management. This means that senior manager, mayor, or mayor and his team must deal with everyday´s agenda exactly as if it was a private company. This manager is absolutely responsible for all the operations, surviving and well-being. He is reported not only to his boss, but also to common citizens. Often it can be even more challenging than in purely commercial sphere. New investing projects are prepared and implemented by the mayors with one simple goal. That the municipality or the city is even more prosperious, modern and creates better and better conditions for the living. It is then the complex project management with all the usual phases as we know from commercial sphere. Problem with the bio-waste in local municipality a Mayor can manage in many ways. On of the most prosperous way is to consider bio-waste as a source of energy and therefore as a source of financial income for the municipality. Of course to undertake all the obstacles when deciding to go this modern way is very hard. The Mayor has many opponents. The municipal council, budget and of course local people to be persuaded. Therefore a complex project management process with all the phases is on table.
As writen before, we consider municipal managemnt very alike a company´s commercial management. From few such a differencies of these two managements we chose to poit-out one: Mayor´s decision making process.
3.4 Mayor´s decision making process
According to Jassingera, A. A Pink, D. it is clear that the decision-making process is influenced by such a large number of factors that for mayor, it is not possible to reach the best solution to the problem. Illustrative examples of factors that can influence decision making process of the Mayor shows Figure 2-Ishikawa Diagram of decision making process for the Mayors.
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Management of biowaste
processing PEOPLE
WITHIN COMMUNITY
WITHIN THE OFFICE project team PROCESSING
METHOD
DISPOSAL
RECOVERY landfilling
combustion
material(recykl.,compost.)
energetic(bio-termconversion)
public opinion PROJECT
MANAGEMEN T NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT.
FEASIBILTY STUDY COMMUNICATION INVESTITION ASSESSMENT
FINANCES PROPER/CREDITS
STATE, Envirofund EEU FUNDS
COMPLEXITY OF THE MUNICIPALITY
GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION EXISTENCE OF LANDFILLS, BIOGAS PLANT, INTERCOMMUNITY COOPERATION
LEGISLATION STATE
EU LOCAL-PROGRAMS
Figure 2 - Ishikawa Diagram of decision making process for the Mayors. Source: own processing
4 GATHERING OF MUNICIPAL WASTE (MW)
Choice of system for gathering and disposal of municipal waste depends on the structure of settlements, topography of land, transportation, quantity and type of waste. This classical approach in dealing with MW used by most Slovak municipalities. Evidently an absence of more sophysticated way of dealing with waste can be noted. In western countries more and more prefered solution is called energetic recovery of biowaste. The primary prerequisite for the processing of biological waste is that the municipality analyze possible sources of bio-residues.
4.1 Selection of the appropriate technologies
There are different technologies in this field. They are able to process different amounts for different waste in different space and in different period of time. It is important to take account of legislative conditions for processing various types of waste. Therefore, it is always necessary to consider the specific conditions if the "fine-tune" technology. Of course it also depends on what final product we want to get. For example selling an ecological compost can improve an economical situation of the commune.
4.2 Economic calculation
It is crucial to estimate financial and operational complexity of the project. Heads of towns or villages should take into account all possible inputs and outputs that will affect the economy.
The aim of the project should be a maximum reduction of biowaste going to disposal. As largest as possible population involvement and non loosing or eventually profitable running.
According to the mentioned research over 94% of Slovak municipal governments have an experience with the EU funds as shown on Figure 3. Even more than 51% of such municipalities has experienced usage of the EU funds for waste management-Figure 4.
Shortly it can therefore be reasonably assumed that Mayors, when considering a potential waste-to-energy project investment could calculate at the income side financial „subsidies“
from European resources.
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Figure 3 - Has the municipality experience with Eurofunding? Source: own processing
Figure 4 - An experience of the slovak municipalities with usage of EU funds for waste management. Source:
own processing.
4.3 Energetic potential of biowaste
Bio-waste as a part of municipal waste can be processed by different processes and technologies. Starting from hydrolysis, gasification through to cracking. Waste can be disposed of either (landfilling, incineration) or recovered (material-recycling and composting, energy). It clearly states Figure 5.
Figure 5 - Processing with municipal waste (MW). Source: own processing
As already written, in Slovakia, most of the time municipal waste is landfilled either on public landfills or combusted directly. Energetic potencial of such a biomass is absolutely not used. Moreover, today we have technologies that would enable such effective transformation.
Financial resources are available, as writen above, either in the form of state grants, municipal, or local budgets, through collaboration with the private sector, and not least from the European Union. Villages and towns that began to separate household waste, showed