Adele Clausen

Commingled Waste Collection as Chance for Technical Separation: Alternative Collection Systems

The most relevant parameter for the profitability of a deposit is its raw materials concentration. With the view on secondary raw materials from municipal solid waste (MSW), the concentration depends on the population density and the specific waste generation rate. To recover a secondary raw material from MSW, collection is the first step and at the same time, the bottleneck, as typically the efficiency of the separate collection of recyclables decreases with increasing population density. Also, the effort of collecting many different recyclables as a single fraction, with each of these fractions making up a small specific amount per household, often only leads to collection costs being too high to be compensated by revenues from recycling or waste fees. As a compromise between losing recyclables due to high degrees of contamination when collected in mixed household waste, and exploding collection costs for too many single fractions, recyclables are often collected as a commingled fraction of selected materials, which can technically be efficiently separated, and then be directed to recycling plants. Local waste management structures, such as contractual periods and distribution of responsibilities, lead to specific collection and treatment systems with individual efficiencies, which is demonstrated by different examples, as implemented in Europe.