Municipal waste management tools for the circular economy: an empirical study on citizen perception on separate collection and urban collection centers

The Urban Solid Waste (RSU) is representative of the society that produces it. It reflects the culture of the area that produces it, and the way that it is managed has a direct impact on the health of the population and the nature living in that area (Vergara e Tchobanoglous, 2012). The increase in quantities and the rate of accumulation of solid urban waste are determined by rapid urbanization and economic growth. Waste management prediction, options as well as conversion technologies are currently popular topics for discussion among policy makers, regulators, scholars and waste management industries (Buratti et al., 2015; Kolekar et al., 2016; Parkes et al., 2015). The amount of waste generation represents an indicator of the urbanization, industrialization and socio-economic development of a country. For instance, due to the recent high economic growth and rapid urbanization in China, the production of this type of waste is a significant concern for the local government in order to protect public health (Chhay et al., 2018; Ghinea et al., 2016). By considering the total waste generated in the EU, urban waste accounts between 7% and 10%. However, it is one of the most complex fraction to be managed and the overall organization and management methods generally represent good indicators of the quality of the entire waste management system of a country. Urban waste is difficult to be managed due to its characteristics represented by the following factors: (i) extremely complex and inhomogeneous composition; (ii) close proximity to citizens; (iii) high public visibility and (iv) impact on the environment and human health. As a consequence, urban waste management requires a highly structured organization that includes an efficient collection system, an effective sorting system and adequate tracking of waste streams. In addition, the active involvement of citizens and businesses, as well as adequate infrastructures for the specific composition of waste are needed. Countries that established efficient municipal waste management systems generally achieve better results in overall waste management, including achieving high recycling targets . In this context, the concept of Circular Economy has recently received growing attention, both in the scientific world and by policy makers. The waste hierarchy establishes a priority order from prevention, preparation for reuse, recycling and energy recovery through to disposal, such as landfilling. This principle aims to encourage the options that deliver the best overall environmental outcome (European Commission, 2015). The aim of the new directives of the European Union (i.e. Directives (EU) 2018/849,850,851 and 852) is to tackle the problem of waste recycling, typical of a linear economy model and promoting the key principles of the circular economy for reducing, reusing, recycling and recovering materials and energy. On this topic, Directive (EU) 2018/849 states that “waste management in the Union should be improved, with a view to protecting, preserving and improving the quality of the environment, protecting human health, ensuring prudent, efficient and rational utilization of natural resources and promoting the principles of the circular economy” (European Commission, 2018). Consistently with this objective, Directive (EU) 2018/851 introduces the obligation to achieve at least the recycling of the 55% by 2025, 60% by 2030 and 65% by 2035 of all urban waste produced during the year . Thus, incentives for the separate collection of municipal waste becomes a fundamental choice aimed at promoting actions that facilitate the contributions by citizens, sustained through the dissemination on the territory of facilities such as urban waste collection centers. The sorting of waste through these Collection Centers forms the basis of the integrated urban waste management system, and represents an indispensable tool to increase the visibility of these policies on the territory in order to achieve an integrated waste management, sustainable from an environmental and economic point of view. Collection Centers, by functioning as an intermediate point, represent in the waste management system the place where MSW “already differentiated by users at home”, is further sorted by specialized employees prior to be transferred to the recovery centers. For this reason, central governments and local administrations need to strongly encourage the use of these centers and provide current and prospect users with widespread informative actions and by enhancing the quality of these services. A complete information must illustrate on one hand the functionality of the service provided (i.e. location of the centers, opening hours, what fractions can be conferred, methods of use, regulation, etc.); on the other hand, it must highlight the main benefits deriving from these practices in terms of social, environmental and economic impacts (according to the traditional triple bottom line framework at the base of sustainable development strategies (Elkington, 1994; Slaper & Hall, 2011)). In this context, the present study has a twofold purpose: to shed light on the current situation of separate collection initiatives and waste collection centers in Italy by analysing, in a preliminary phase, reference public data concerning selected representative cities; to investigate the awareness and perception of quality of these initiatives in the perspective of citizens-users as well as their accuracy and frequency of use. To achieve this purpose, data collected through an online survey with an extensive sample of respondents, were statistically analysed and allowed to test the predictive models concerning respectively the correlations among the variables of information and accuracy in the separate collection and quality of service and frequency of use of collection centers. The prediction model of this study includes multivariate analysis of variance and multiple regression analyses. The purpose is to assess how the variables of the perceived information and quality of services predict the accuracy and frequency of the waste sorting implemented by the users.