Municipal Waste Management in Context of Sustainable Urban Development

AbstractMunicipal waste management is an element of environmental order marking which is one of the areas of sustainable development. This article draws attention to the problem of municipal waste management in the context of sustainable urban development. The purpose of the article is a dynamics analysis in terms of municipal waste management characteristics in urban areas. Selected Polish voivodships and cities are examined across a set of variables comprised of the following measures: collected mixed municipal waste, collected mixed municipal waste from trade, small business, collected mixed municipal waste from municipal services, collected mixed municipal waste from households, mixed municipal waste from households in selected health resorts and number and area of controlled landfill sites in operation. The analysis is based on data from the years 2004 and 2012

Globalization and the development of logistics infrastructure of the freight transport by road

Development of countries and regions is possible thanks to their adequate infrastructure. The globalization of economic processes has contributed to the increase in the intensity of the movement of all kinds of goods, which is possible due to the transport infrastructure. Transport is one of the functional systems of logistics, which covers all activities consisting in the movement of material goods, people and information, in time and space, with appropriate technical equipment. Thus, it constitutes an element of the technical infrastructure of logistics. Road transport is the main branch of Polish transport both in terms of the mass of and the revenues from the freight. Therefore the authors have conducted an in-depth study of the logistics infrastructure of the freight transport by road, not only for Poland, but also for other European countries. The purpose of this article is to analyze the concentration of the elements of the road transport infrastructure and to examine the competitiveness of companies providing road transport services in selected European countries in the years 2001-2011, and to examine the road network saturation. The following indices were used in the analysis: Herfindahl-Hirschman concentration index, location quotient, weighted average rate of road network density and Engel's road network density index. The Herfindahl-Hirschman index measures the concentration and determines the estimated level of concentration in a given industry and the level of competitiveness on a given market. The location quotient determines the level of the analyzed variable in relation to the so-called reference variable and allows one to determine whether the analyzed area has a higher level of the variable in a given section, compared to the average for the reference area, whether there is a potential shortage of certain activities in the examined area, or whether the level of a feature in a given area is sufficient. Weighted average rate of the road network density refers to the density of the road network in relation to the area and population of a given country. The Engel's network density ratio in turn takes into account, apart from the area and population, the size of the transported goods. The performed analyses provide information on the uniformity of equipment in the road transport infrastructure of the examined countries and show similarities and differences in the road network saturation. The applied measures allow one to compare the analyzed countries in terms of the discussed variables, and in particular: the total length of motorways (kilometers), annual road freight transport (thousands of tonnes), length of e-roads (kilometers) length of other roads (kilometers), number of goods road transport companies

Assessment and analysis of the application of sewage treatment technologies in Poland

Environmental pollution is a serious problem in highly industrialized countries, as it may pose a threat to the human health and life. For these reasons, entities responsible for polluting the environment and its natural resources undertake pro-environmental actions that involve reduction of the negative impact of the activities of human beings and businesses on the environment. Such activities are aimed at the application of low and no-waste technologies. Unfortunately, it is impossible to completely eliminate pollution from the human activity. This article focuses on sewage treatment technologies, the purpose of which is to eliminate the already existing pollution. Therefore, the analyses were limited to water and sewage treatment technologies, as the growing demand for water, its constantly deteriorating purity and requirements as regards its quality, force changes in the water resources management system. In various provinces in Poland, environmental protection is being implemented more or less successfully. It is necessary to apply the principles of environmental protection to the human behaviour and activity of business entities, because there are more and more activities particularly harmful to the natural environment. The implemented modern technologies aimed at the elimination of (or eliminating) the negative impact of human and business activities on the natural environment, are bringing the desired results as far as the protection of individual natural resources is concerned. One of the fundamental imperfections of the market is a lack of environmental resources, such as air or water. Inability to define the economic value of the natural resources results in their constant, excessive exploitation and degradation. However, the growing awareness of the environmental issue in Poland is resulting in the application of technologies that protect individual natural resources. This paper attempts to determine the measures of pro-environmental activities in the scope of sewage treatment, undertaken on the territory of individual provinces, and to classify the provinces in accordance with the achieved level of application of sewage treatment technologies. For this purpose one has used the numerical taxonomy methods, and in particular the methods of linear ordering of objects (that involve projection of the objects from a multidimensional space of features onto a straight line), called the methods of multidimensional comparative analysis. The measures were designed based on available statistical data from 2011. The purpose of this article is to find out which provinces are similar to each other in terms of the application of sewage treatment technologies, and to find a province that has managed to achieve the best results in this regard

Rozwój wykorzystania odnawialnych źródeł energii w produkcji energii elektrycznej w Polsce w aspekcie wymogów Unii Europejskiej

The paper presents the basic directions of renewable energy sources utilization in Poland according to requirements of the European Union. The attention was paid to economic and ecological effects of energy production from renewable sources and to possibility of measurement of eco-development level in the field of renewable energy sources utilization.W referacie przedstawiono podstawowe kierunki rozwoju wykorzystania odnawialnych źródeł energii w Polsce zgodnie z wymogami Unii Europejskiej. Zwrócono uwagę na ekonomiczne i ekologiczne efekty produkcji energii ze źródeł odnawialnych, a także dokonano próby pomiaru poziomu ekorozwoju w zakresie wykorzystania odnawialnych źródeł energii.Zadanie pt. „Digitalizacja i udostępnienie w Cyfrowym Repozytorium Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego kolekcji czasopism naukowych wydawanych przez Uniwersytet Łódzki” nr 885/P-DUN/2014 zostało dofinansowane ze środków MNiSW w ramach działalności upowszechniającej nauk

Analysis of Energy Production Process Influence on the Environment as the Element of LCA Technique

Wzrost znaczenia ochrony środowiska w działalności gospodarczej przyczynił się do poszukiwania coraz szerszego instrumentarium służącego analizie podjętych działań proekologicznych. W artykule przedstawiono podstawy techniki LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) jako nowej techniki zarządzania środowiskowego uwzględniającej wszystkie czynniki wpływające na środowisko naturalne. Szczególną uwagę zwrócono na oddziaływania procesu wytwarzania energii elektrycznej na środowisko, gdyż proces ten jest szczególnie dla niego uciążliwy. Analizie statystycznej poddano czynniki związane z procesem wytwarzania energii, m. in. surowce produkcyjne, odpady, polutanty powietrza

APPLICATION OF DEA METHOD IN ANALYSE OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF AIR POLLUTION PREVENTION ACTIVITIES - A REGIONAL LEVEL STUDY

The article analyses the effectiveness of air quality protection undertakings seen as an element in the assessment of activities aiming at a sustainable development of a country in terms of environmental governance. Environmental governance pertains to the use of natural recourses and the actions reducing the environmental impact of economic activities. Polish provinces are compared on the basis of environmental governance indexes of sustainable development connected with air protection. The analysis uses the DEA method and the following measures serve as variables:1. determining DEA results: - particulates retained and neutralized in cleaning devices, - sulphur dioxide retained and neutralized in cleaning devices, - nitrogen oxides retained and neutralized in cleaning devices, - carbon oxide retained and neutralized in cleaning devices, 2. determining DEA input: - plants of significant nuisance to air quality with particulate pollutant reduction systems, - plants of significant nuisance to air quality with gaseous pollutant reduction systems, - outlays on fixed assets for protection of air and climate. The year 2012 is the subject of the analysis.W artykule dokonano analizy efektywności przedsięwzięć z zakresu ochrony powietrza jako elementu oceny działań zmierzających do zrównoważonego rozwoju kraju w aspekcie ładu środowiskowego. Ład środowiskowy obejmuje obszary związane z wykorzystaniem zasobów środowiska przyrodniczego oraz działaniami mającymi na celu redukcję negatywnego wpływu działalności gospodarczej na środowisko przyrodnicze. Na podstawie wskaźników ładu środowiskowego zrównoważonego rozwoju dotyczących ochrony powietrza porównano województwa w Polsce. W tym celu zastosowano metodę DEA, a za zbiór zmiennych przyjęto następujące mierniki:1. Charakteryzujące rezultaty DEA: - stopień redukcji pyłów w urządzeniach oczyszczających, - stopień redukcji dwutlenku siarki w urządzeniach oczyszczających, - stopień redukcji tlenków azotu w urządzeniach oczyszczających, - stopień redukcji tlenku węgla w urządzeniach oczyszczających.2. Charakteryzujące nakłady DEA: - liczba zakładów szczególnie uciążliwych dla czystości powietrza posiadających urządzenia do redukcji zanieczyszczeń pyłowych, - liczba zakładów szczególnie uciążliwych dla czystości powietrza posiadających urządzenia do redukcji zanieczyszczeń gazowych, - nakłady na środki trwałe służące ochronie powietrza i klimatu. Analizie poddano dane z roku 2012

Analysis of Energy Production Process Influence on the Environment as the Element of LCA Technique

Wzrost znaczenia ochrony środowiska w działalności gospodarczej przyczynił się do poszukiwania coraz szerszego instrumentarium służącego analizie podjętych działań proekologicznych. W artykule przedstawiono podstawy techniki LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) jako nowej techniki zarządzania środowiskowego uwzględniającej wszystkie czynniki wpływające na środowisko naturalne. Szczególną uwagę zwrócono na oddziaływania procesu wytwarzania energii elektrycznej na środowisko, gdyż proces ten jest szczególnie dla niego uciążliwy. Analizie statystycznej poddano czynniki związane z procesem wytwarzania energii, m. in. surowce produkcyjne, odpady, polutanty powietrza

Sustainable Waste Logistics and the Development of Trade in Recyclable Raw Materials in Poland and Hungary

This article aims to propose a methodological framework to determine the degree of the dynamic impact of the effect of activities in the field of sustainable waste logistics on the development of trade in recyclable raw materials in the chosen countries of the European Union, especially in Poland and Hungary. In order to determine the dynamic interdependence between the indicated phenomena, econometric tools associated with the vector autoregression model were used, namely: Granger causality tests, impulse response function and variance decomposition of forecast errors. The tools used will not only identify the direction of the causal interdependence between the effects of sustainable logistics activities and the development of trade in recyclable raw materials, but also allow to determine the strength of the interaction between these variables. The conducted research shows that changes in the environmental effects of waste logistics activities are the Granger cause of changes occurring in the trade of renewable raw materials, especially in Hungary. Considering adequately delayed values of the synthetic development measure of the environmental effects of waste logistics increases the accuracy of predictions for changes in the trade of recyclable raw materials