Regionally Divergent Patterns in Factors Affecting Municipal Waste Production: The Polish Perspective

Abstract

This article attempts to identify factors impacting on the quantity of municipal waste in Polish 2478 communes (LAU-2), taking into account the variability of particular determinants’ influence depending on their regional diversification. The analysis covers the years 2005–2018. The dependent variable is the volume of municipal waste in kg per capita, whereas the group of determinants include: economic and human development, uncontrolled dumping sites, population density, population at the working age, migration, tourism, urbanization, dwellings and housing, retail sales, entities, education, and investments in waste management. The geographically weighted regression with spatial error term (GWR–SEM) was employed in this study. The model enabled not only the specification of the waste production determinants, but also the analysis of the variability in the strength and direction of dependencies occurring between the examined variables in individual communes. The results proved that the higher the level of education, the less waste is generated (in north-central Poland); the business entities and working-age population are crucial for the waste quantity in communes of eastern Poland; the factors most important to regional range affecting the waste quantity are urban and business development, and most important to strength are higher education and the share of working-age individuals.