An Innovative and Alternative Waste Collection Recycling Program Based on Source Separation of Municipal Solid Wastes (MSW) and Operating with Mobile Green Points (MGPs)

Abstract

Recently, among European Union (EU) member states, but also globally, there have been available and successful recycling and treatment practices of Municipal Solid Wastes (MSW). Greece has currently implemented low recycling levels, 21%, of the annually produced MSW, compared to the EU regulations. In 2021 the prefectural authorities of Attica Region launched a pilot program of rewarding recycling with source Separation called “THE GREEN CITY”. This program consists of 60 mobile green points (MGPs) that serve at a unified citizen awareness and MSW collection at 7-streams network throughout the prefecture of Attica. In this study, the whole design analysis of “THE GREEN CITY” pilot recycling program contained estimations and calculations of (a) the distances of all waste collection remote itineraries (basic analysis); (b) the annual fuel cost of the MGPs for the realization of all waste collection remote itineraries (financial-based analysis); and (c) the annual carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions into the atmosphere from the IVECO MGPs during the coverage of all waste collection remote itineraries (environmental-based analysis). Then a research synthesis of all these analyses revealed and evaluated the pilot recycling program’s real capabilities and limitations in alignment with: (a) its ultimate goal to help Greece achieve the setting target of Directive 2018/851 for at least 55% by weight recycling and reuse of the total annually generated Greek MSW by 2025 and (b) the MGPs proven ability to support environmental sustainability in densely populated prefectures such as Attica.