Author: Katarzyna Pasikowska

The aim of separate collection of municipal waste, including biodegradable waste, is to reduce
the amount of waste going to landfills, to reuse products, to obtain secondary raw materials and to reduce the negative impact on the environment. Depending on the available infrastructure, bio-waste can be directed to composting plants or biogas plants, hence the similarities and differences in waste collection systems between municipalities in Poland and in other countries. The quality of the environment we live in depends on the efficiency of the waste management system.

Over recent years, recycling and recovery of waste has been increasing in Poland and other European countries as a result of EU and national regulations. The same regulations bring further challenges to municipalities in terms of increasing levels of recycling and reducing landfilling.

The “Catalogue of good practice in the collection of bio-waste” presents examples of good practice in bio-waste collection from Poland, Norway and other European countries where efficient biodegradable waste management systems have been in place for many years. We would like these examples to be a guideline for taking action to improve bio-waste collection systems and their further processing.

The biogas market in European countries is at varying levels of development. Despite the benefits of biogas production for the environment, a closed loop economy or energy security, there are still a number of barriers that significantly limit the possibilities for biogas and biomethane market development in Poland and Norway. These barriers can be divided into organisational and legal, technical, economic, environmental, spatial and social.

Strongly linked to the issue of biogas production is also the management of bio-waste. This is because biogas plants enable changes to be made to the management of waste from the food industry and the biodegradable part of municipal waste.

The current insufficient level of selective collection of bio-waste in Poland, as well as the limited possibilities for its processing in the existing installations designed for this purpose, contribute to the still negligible exploitation of its potential. One of the main documents in Poland concerning waste management is the National Waste Management Plan until 2028. Among the targets set in the document for municipal waste, including biodegradable waste, it is indicated, inter alia, to increase organic recycling by promoting composting of bio-waste ‘at source’ by inhabitants, to limit landfilling of bio-waste to a maximum of 35% calculated on the basis of the amount of bio-waste generated in 1995. The document furthermore explicitly mentions the management of bio-waste in biogas plants (including agricultural biogas plants) as one way of dealing with municipal waste, but points to a significant problem of insufficient number and capacity of existing biogas plants for bio-waste management.

Norway has for many years been one of the countries with a very high level of separate waste collection. Norway’s Waste Management Plan 2020-2025 indicates that the national goal is to aim for waste growth to be significantly lower than economic growth and for the resources contained in waste to be used in the best possible way through material recycling and energy use. It also noted the need to introduce and develop good solutions for the collection of bio-waste, both from households and businesses.

Report “Barriers to the implementation of biogas production and bio-waste management solutions” presents a set of identified barriers facing investments in municipal biogas plants (and biomethane plants) and the bio-waste management system in Poland and Norway. Identifying the problems is the first step in seeking and developing appropriate solutions to reduce or remove them altogether.

“Catalogue of local stakeholders relevant for bio-waste management and biogas production” is a collection of basic information on stakeholder mapping in the investment process in bio-waste management and biogas production, including biomethane. Stakeholder mapping is an element of investment management that is important from the investor’s point of view to identify market potential, cooperators and various types of institutional partners. It is also essential
for dialogue with stakeholders.

The need to develop a structured, basic template for a stakeholder catalogue stems from various considerations, identified from observation and analysis of the bio-waste management and biogas market, including contacts with its participants. These are related to the comments below:

• despite the legislative basis for the public consultation process, it should be noted that it refers primarily to public administration entities, including local governments. At the same time, there is no such path for commercial entities;
• provisions do not in any way include indications resulting from current good practice due
  to the relatively new experience on the bio-waste and biogas market and the “learning” process of conducting investments;
• the prevalence of conflicts and a “bad” atmosphere around biogas and waste management investments.

This document outlines the importance of stakeholder mapping, conducting a communication strategy including stakeholder dialogue. The implementation of the project in Polish-Norwegian cooperation allows us to consider the key elements involved universal. Therefore, this document
has a common core with stakeholder catalogues distinguished independently for each country (Poland and Norway).

Our aim is to provide elementary knowledge for investors in the market for bio-waste management and biogas production and, as a result, to support the development of this market.

The need for investment in renewable energy sources stems from the challenges facing the world as a whole in terms of the need to reduce human impact on the climate and the environment. One source that at the same time allows for stable production regardless of weather conditions is biogas. Thanks to its properties, biogas can be used in various sectors, such as energy, transport or agriculture. The wide range of applications and the possibility of ensuring a constant supply of biogas (and biomethane) opens up a number of development opportunities for regional and national economies, as well as local communities.

Poland has a huge potential to produce biogas from agricultural raw materials, and by also using the potential resting in biodegradable waste and sewage sludge, it can significantly modify its energy mix and improve its energy security. Norway, on the other hand, has a huge potential for biogas production from bio-waste, including that from food processing.

This catalogue presents examples of investments from Poland, Norway and other European countries, where biogas production from various substrates has been carried out successfully for many years. We would like these examples to be an inspiration for the development of the biogas and renewable energy market in Poland and Norway.