710 Grams a Day: Understanding waste

Our every action on the planet has an impact on the world – sometimes, it’s just a philosophical idea, however, when talking about climate change it’s a non-negotiable thing. Recently, Energesman, the operator of the mechanical and biological treatment (MBT) plant in the Vilnius region shared the findings of their study on residents in the capital city of Lithuania. Residents of the Vilnius region are generating less mixed municipal waste. Last year, in 2023 each resident in Vilnius and the surrounding areas produced an approximately 259 kg of waste per year, or 710 grams per day to be exact. This represents a 3% reduction compared to the previous year back in 2022, when the waste was 267 kg per person annually, or 730 grams per day, for every resident – from children to the elderly, meaning that the waste amount decreased by 20 grams a day or 7 kilograms per year. Sounds kind of impressive, when you look at the number of residents, according to the city’s estimated July 2024 population was 605,270, and the Vilnius urban area (which extends beyond the city limits) has an estimated population of 708,627, thus – accumulating to a waste by 503.13 kilograms everyday.

When comparing, to 2022, the EU’s average municipal waste generation stood at 513 kilograms per capita, a year-over-year decline of 3.6 percent. This was the first annual decline registered in eight years.

According to the Energeoman, the biggest part of waste they sort from mixed trash is packaging, in 2023 11,400 tonnes of secondary raw materials – including plastics, glass, metals, paper, and cardboard – were sorted and sent for recycling companies to recycle further. Most of the sorted materials at the Vilnius plant last year were glass (3,765 tonnes), followed by paper and cardboard (2,962 tonnes), and plastic packaging (2,348 tonnes). As noted by Vilnius waste sorting plant “Not all the plastic sorted last year could be sold to recyclers. We could sort even more plastic packaging if there were more demand from recyclers”.

However, the plant notices that one of the biggest weight brought to them as waste can not be considered as the recyclable material “The largest portion of the waste brought to us by weight is simple water – about 15%. We dry it out, significantly reducing the weight. This complicates the accounting process somewhat, as water in waste is not considered waste,” director Blazgys explains. Thus there is still a noticeable gap of knowledge missing from people who uses the mixed trash containers – it’s noted that 14% of plastic still ends up in the mixed containers, 8%, of paper and cardboard, 6% of textile products and around 5% of glass ends up being disposed wrongfully, making up almost 32% of disposables recyclable, which ended up being discarded as mixed waste. Besides that, the plant also notices that they receive simply non-recyclable items including: construction materials, car parts, tyres, furniture, electronic equipment, phones that have their own system to be taken care of – large or industrial waste pick up sites or services, which in some cases is a paid commodity, thus it’s making it’s way to be more accessible to average user though initiatives as free collection of such waste in municipalities – individual waste collection service – without an additional fee, such service is provided for bulky waste, household-generated textiles, construction waste, as well as hazardous waste collection from private individuals (residents) once a year free of charge.

Coming back to the Energesman, last year, the company became the first in Lithuania and the Baltic states to receive a certificate from Bureau Veritas, allowing them to produce a specialized SRF mix for industrial use. The Vilnius waste sorting plant supplies this SRF to Akmenes Cementas, where it becomes part of the clinker used in cement production and lets the remaining non-recyclable waste be repurposed for a second time.

Seeing that the numbers of waste is decreasing and that initiatives and available resources to manage the waste exists, feels hopeful, however, we shall not forget that all this was achieved due to collaborative effort, thus we shall continue on improving in the future to see even better results in fighting the waste.