Preliminary analysis of the state of municipal waste management technology in Poland along with the identification of waste treatment processes in terms of odor emissions

Waste management faces more and more serious challenges, especially given the growing amount of municipal waste generated in Poland and the resulting environmental impact. One of the significant environmental aspects of waste management is the emission of odorants and odors. Taking into account the odor problem, the majority of municipal waste generated is being collected as mixed waste (62% of municipal waste), which by weight contains approximately 32.7% of kitchen and garden waste. These organic fractions are mainly responsible for the emission of odor and odorants. Those substances can be emitted at every stage: from the waste collection at residential waste bins, through transport, waste storage, and transfer stations, up to various respective treatment facilities, i.e., mechanical-biological waste treatment plants, landfills, or waste incineration plants. The gathered data during the study showed that it is necessary to increase the share of different waste management methods, i.e., recycling, composting, or fermentation processes rather than landfilling to meet all necessary regulations and to fulfill provisions of the waste hierarchy. One of the actions indicated in the legal solutions is expansion, retrofitting, and construction of new sorting plants, anaerobic digestion plants, composting plants, and increase in thermal treatment capacity. Variety of different processes that could emit odors and a diversity of different odor-generating substances released from particular waste management steps should be taken into consideration when building new facilities which are suitable for waste treatment. The overall aim of the work was to characterize and summarize available knowledge about waste management system in Poland and to gather information about odor-generating substances emitted from different waste management steps and facilities, which could be a potential source of information for preparing legal solutions to reduce possible odor nuisance form broadly understood waste management.