Recycling potential of municipal solid waste in Finland

Increasing municipal solid waste recycling rate is a highly topical issue within Europe at the moment because European Union has set its member countries the target of a 50% municipal solid waste recycling rate by 2020. Finland is far behind from achieving the target: the recycling rate in 2015 was only 40.6% and it did not develop between 2006 and 2014 at all. This dissertation analyzes the recycling potential of municipal solid waste in Finland in order to provide scientific knowledge for the policy-making towards the 50% recycling target. A new method to study the composition and recycling potential of mixed municipal solid waste was established by compiling different stakeholders' information needs concerning municipal solid waste and examining the best practices in European composition study methods. The method includes a classification system, which ensures the accumulation of comparable mixed municipal solid waste composition data throughout Finland. The classification system was tested by conducting two mixed municipal solid waste composition studies. After that, mixed municipal solid waste composition data was utilized to build a waste flow model, which represents the generation and recycling of different municipal solid waste fractions in the various operations. The model was applied to develop a 50% recycling rate scenario for Finland. Municipal solid waste recycling potential was also measured at the city-level by testing the applicability of material loss indicator. The results indicate that Finnish mixed municipal solid waste from households contains averagely around 70-80% of recyclable materials. The largest additional recycling potential lies in biowaste and plastic. Achieving the recycling rate of 50% for Finnish municipal solid waste requires multiple significant actions. These actions include stricter obligations on separate collection in the door-to-door system, advice campaigns and pay-as-you-throw schemes to improve sorting efficiency of households, as well as developing the background data and expanding the collection of recyclables from administrative, service and business operations. Measuring recycling potential at the city-level by material loss indicator is challenging because current data sources are insufficient. The results of this study can be used for the strategic development of municipal solid waste management systems.